


Cold and Rain

by Sed



Series: Revelation [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:03:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1294117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While visiting Kasidy on Bajor, Kira runs into someone she believed dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after the events of What You Leave Behind.

Kira sighed and set the padd she'd been holding on the captain’s desk. She hadn’t quite convinced herself that the office was really  _hers_ , despite the eleven months she had occupied it, and the growing number of personal effects that had unavoidably made their way onto the walls and tables around the room. It was funny, considering how bitterly she had objected when they first informed her a Federation officer would be assuming control of the station and taking that very office for himself. She had a feeling that even if she were to start calling it her own, the room overlooking Ops would always feel like it belonged to Captain Sisko.

Of course, thinking of Sisko made her think of his family; it had only been a few months since Kasidy had given birth to the captain’s second child. Together, she and Jake relocated to Bajor. To something safer and more comfortable than the dark corridors and stark architecture of a Cardassian-built space station. And of course the Bajoran people were more than happy to set up accommodations for the family of the Emissary. When last the colonel checked, all three were doing well. It was a good change of scenery for them, and a relief for many on Bajor to have the Emissary’s family nearby. A comfort in his absence.

Kira had plans to visit eventually. Two weeks of leave danced tantalizingly before her and the hectic schedule of a station commander, daring her to take time off for herself and leave the endless monotony of management to someone else for a little while. She hadn’t even been to Bajor since before the war. There was just too much to do.

 _“Cargo Bay 12 to Colonel Kira_. _”_

Interrupted by yet another undoubtedly 'pressing' issue, Kira set aside all thoughts of actually using her leave. She had duties, and obviously they wouldn’t wait. “Go ahead,” she replied.

 _“Colonel, there’s a problem with one of the containers that just arrived on the Bolian freighter_. _”_ The voice on the comm belonged to Ensign Adam Ross, nephew of Admiral Ross, who had been instrumental in making sure Kira remained in control of the station in Captain Sisko’s absence. Ensign Ross had specifically requested a posting on Deep Space Nine, apparently under the mistaken impression that it was still the most exciting posting in the quadrant, where his lust for adventure could be sated on ship-to-ship battles and interplanetary political intrigue. Unfortunately for Ross, he was just a few months too late to fulfill most of his adventure fantasies, and his lack of field experience meant the majority of his time was spent around inert cargo containers, where he couldn’t cause a problem. Kira hesitated to say he was incompetent, but his chances of graduating from Starfleet Academy probably hadn’t been hurt by his family connections.

“What kind of problem, Ensign?” she asked, already anticipating an answer that would require an engineering team and a security detail, if not more.

_“Well, sir, it’s… one of the containers down here. It’s… moving.”_

The colonel set her cheek against her palm and closed her eyes. “Are you sure it isn’t supposed to?” Never mind that he should have called for _security_ if he felt there was something in a container that wasn’t listed on the manifest—that was the least of their problems when it came to the young officer. He seemed unusually determined to earn her approval, by nearly any means. “Maybe it’s just a mislabeled shipment of gagh that was ordered for the Klingon restaurant,” she suggested.

_“It’s labeled spare phaser housings, sir. And… sir, gagh doesn’t move this much, at least not most of the time.”_

Kira was about to ask if he had double checked the manifest when a high pitched squeal cut her off. “Ensign?” she called through the comm. There was no response. “Ensign Ross, respond! Are you alright?”

After a tense moment of dead air, Ross finally answered. _“I’m okay,”_ he whispered. _“But I think it’s loose.”_ A second enraged squeal cut through the air, and Kira could hear the panic in Ross’ voice as he cursed and started climbing over containers to escape whatever had been unleashed in the bay.

“I’m sending security,” Kira said. She waited for confirmation that he had heard her over the snapping of teeth and guttural growls in the background, and then cut the line. Security would be there before whatever was in there with him could do any real damage. Hopefully.

The padd lay on the desk in front of her, filled with lists of complaints, requests, and reports. There was a would-be smuggling ring with a small operation dealing in rare and dangerous fauna that had been active in the sector over recent months. Obviously, she realized a moment too late, Ensign Ross had encountered one of their latest shipments. They weren’t very good smugglers.

_“Bashir to Kira.”_

“Go ahead, Doctor.”

It was evident from the sounds of struggle in the background that the doctor had become involved in the Cargo Bay 12 fiasco already. _“Colonel, I think I should inform you that there is a very large targ running rampant in c—”_

“I’m aware, Doctor. Is Ensign Ross alright?” Trade in the aggressive Klingon beasts was carefully monitored, which made shipping them both difficult and expensive, and explained why a startup smuggling operation would be interested in sneaking one through the station unnoticed.

_“He’s fine. A few scrapes, but he’s remarkably agile when his life is on the line.”_

Kira nodded. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. “Have they managed to catch it yet?”

_“Almost. They’ve got it cornered at the moment, and—wait, it seems I’m wrong. I have to go.”_

 

In the end it took two full teams of Bajoran and Starfleet personnel working together to subdue the creature. Six crewmen were sent to the infirmary, one of them Doctor Bashir, and another eight would probably think twice before facing down a cornered targ ever again.

Three days later, Kira was on the next transport to Bajor.

 

 

The Kendra province was just as beautiful as it had been when Captain Sisko first showed Kira where he planned to build his home after the war, maybe more so. Few signs remained of the Cardassian stripmining operations and sprawling industrial farms that had once been such a blight on the land. It had taken years of hard work to reclaim the poisoned tracts of earth and revive the devastated native flora, but those efforts showed in the splendor of autumn abundant throughout the valley as Kira made the journey from the local transportation hub to the captain's property. It was almost difficult to remember what a nightmare places like Kendra had been only a few years before. Bajor wasn't the burned husk of an abused world anymore; they were healed, and they were thriving despite the best efforts of the Cardassians, who had since suffered their own devastating withdrawal by occupying forces. The cruel irony was that Bajor had come through the war with the Dominion stronger for having been made to stand alone, and the Cardassian Union, for all its attempts at allying with the powers that would offer the most advantageous benefits time and again, had been reduced to mere rubble and dust.

The first few days of her stay had been quiet, and Kira had spent most of the time helping Kasidy around the house. As it turned out, Jake had taken a trip to the capital with friends and wouldn't be back until later in the week. After a while Kira decided the best way to relieve her friend of the burden of playing both hostess and caretaker was to head out for a few days herself, and take a hike through the nearby hills. She packed a bag with supplies, assured Kasidy that she could handle anything Bajor's wilderness might throw at her, and set off for the north.

Near sunset on the first day she stopped along the edge of a woodland to dig through her pack for something that would pass as dinner. Kasidy had prepared breakfast for her that morning before she set out, but after hours of hiking through heavily forested terrain, peppered more and more by rocky outcroppings as the landscape banked and rose with the steeper incline of the surrounding mountains, that generous meal seemed like little more than a distant memory. Kira had plenty of ration packs, but even hunger couldn't make them appealing. The coming winter meant there probably wouldn't be much to find growing wild, but Kasidy had mentioned over dinner the night before that some of the local farmers were taking in offworld field hands to help tend crops and ease the workload for the older landowners. The workers, apparently displaced refugees from the war with the Dominion, were paid a small stipend from the sales of each harvest, and given a place to stay and food as long as they were working. From the way Kasidy made it sound, the northern half of the valley was peppered with these charity farms.

Forty minutes of hiking brought Kira to the crest of a hill that overlooked the northeastern region of the valley. Far below she could see a large plot of land portioned out into wide, round fields, some already being harvested for the last time before winter. She spotted a single humanoid shape working its way up and down the rows of one patch. After a moment a second figure appeared, closer to the house at the far side of the property. He carried a bundle of tools under one arm, and his slow shuffle marked him much older than the other figure, who moved quickly through the paths between the crops. It seemed to be exactly the sort of situation Kasidy had described; an elderly landowner and a lodger paid to work his fields. She started down the hill toward the house, coming from the south to avoid being lost in the fading sunlight overhead. When he caught sight of her the farmer hailed her with a wave as she neared the edge of the closest field. Kira returned the friendly gesture and jogged down the remainder of the slope to meet him.

“Hello!” she called breathlessly when they were finally close enough to exchange greetings. It was still a few paces to where the old man was tying sacks of fruit with twine.

“Evening!” the farmer called back without looking up from his work. “Do you need help with something?”

Kira shook her head. “I was just passing through the area, and I saw your farm—”

“Let me guess,” he chuckled, “you’d rather have _real_ food, rather than whatever properly balanced, replicated sustenance pack you’ve got in that Starfleet knapsack on your back there. Right?” He smiled and reached into the sack he'd been tying to produce two moba. “I have some alvas, too, if you don’t mind waiting. No charge,” he said as he tossed her each one at a time. He motioned for her to wait. “I’ll call my hand in from the back field, he should be picking them now.”

Kira shook her head and waved away the unnecessary generosity. “Thank you, but these are more than enough. I can make do with a ration pack and enjoy these after.”

“Nonsense. Wait here,” said the farmer, giving her no chance to refuse again. “I’ll send him over.”

Relenting to his kindly determination, Kira nodded and thanked him again. She could do worse than allowing an old man to burden her with free food. The farm itself was quiet, and the fading light had sent most of the birds to roost in the trees for the night, adding to the silence. There was an empty bench next to the house, and Kira took the opportunity to rest a bit while she waited, enjoying the cool breeze and the stillness that surrounded her. Some time passed as she waited for either the farmer or his farmhand to appear with the promised fruit. When she finally did hear the sound of someone approaching, it was accompanied by a voice that seemed too familiar to be real. “I heard you!” the man called out angrily, probably to the farmer. He appeared through the tall stalks of grain that had been planted in the foremost field, and in the waning light Kira was startled to find the owner of the voice was a Cardassian. But not just any Cardassian.

“ _Damar?_ ”

The man who appeared to be Damar shuffled back a step, wide-eyed and mouth agape in surprise. Once she had a chance to get a good look at him, Kira knew it was no simple case of mistaken identity; apart from his shabby clothes and the fine layer of dirt covering his gray skin, he looked exactly the same as he had the day they had stormed the Dominion headquarters on Cardassia Prime. The day she watched him die. In his shock, Damar had dropped the small sack of alvas he’d been carrying. Kira didn’t notice, nor would she have cared if she had; hunger was the last thing on her mind as she stood up and stormed over to get a better look at his face. Damar turned away, as though that would stop her from simply grabbing his arm and turning him around again to face her, which she promptly did. “What are you _doing_ here? What are you doing _alive?_ ” She shook her head and rattled his arm to make him answer. “I saw you die. Garak and I—”

“Keep your voice down!” Damar hissed angrily.

“Keep my _voice down?_ That’s all you have to say for yourself?” She released his arm and let him step back. “Where have you—wait—don’t walk away from me!” she demanded, stalking after him as he retreated into the field. “Damar! Answer me!”

He made a failed attempt at trying to lose her between the rows of grain, eventually giving up when he realized she couldn’t be shaken. He finally rounded on her, stopping Kira in her tracks as they nearly collided there in the field. “Go back to wherever it is you came from,” he snarled, gesturing over her shoulder. “You are obviously a very confused woman. I don’t know you.”

The sheer idiocy of his desperate gamble was almost enough to make her laugh. When he turned around again and continued stomping his way through the stalks she kept after him, on his heels step-for-step. “So that's it, now you don’t know me?” she laughed. “You seemed pretty surprised to see me a minute ago! That’s a pretty strong reaction for someone you’ve never met before!”

“ _Go. Away._ ”

“If I go, it’ll be to contact whoever's left in Central Command and let them know that a man who looks an _awful_ lot like the great Legate Damar is digging around in a field on Bajor.” She stopped, silently daring him to call her bluff. “What’ll it be, not-Damar? At the very least they could hire you to pose for portraits and memorials. The pay has to be better than what you’re getting here.”

He stopped for just a moment, shrugged, and then continued on into the field, eventually disappearing among the stalks.

Kira stared after him. Confusion and outrage clouded her thoughts, and she tried to piece together what could have possibly occurred to bring Damar to Bajor, alive, and so anxious to remain hidden. She couldn’t have been mistaken, like he claimed, could she? Apart from his clothes everything about him was exactly the same as it had been nearly a year earlier. He even had the same arrogant swagger that made her want to punch him in the back of the head. Whatever was happening, whatever had happened before that he wasn’t willing to share, she couldn’t simply ignore it. She had failed to goad him into telling her the truth; now she would find it for herself.

Kira turned and started marching back in the direction of the house. Maybe the farmer could tell her something about his unusual farmhand.

 

 

Night had already settled over the valley before she managed to locate the farmer again. He was cleaning tools at a workbench in a small shed, just past the small orchard. She watched him chip away at the dirt that had cemented itself to the metal trowels and shears that lined the top of the bench. She let him work in peace for a few minutes before she cleared her throat to announce herself.

“Do you have a moment?” she asked.

The old man twisted slowly at the waist to give her a once-over, then returned to his work. “As long as you don’t mind watching me clean mud out of my tools,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”

“You have a Cardassian working your land,” she said.

The man nodded. “I suppose I should have warned you. My apologies." He sighed and shook his head. "He’s stubborn, and a little dense, but he does his job. It’s some sort of relief program. For the Cardassians who were displaced by the war, I think. When they told us about it I was a little…”

“Skeptical?”

“Worried. Allowing them back here seemed like a step in the wrong direction. You know what I mean?” He tossed a cleaned trowel aside and started on another. “But those government representatives explained that the Cardassian people were starving, dying of disease because there weren’t enough doctors left to handle all the sick and injured, things like that. They said the Federation could only do so much. On and on, reason after reason. I didn’t think much of the idea, even then.”

Kira found a stool buried under a stack of empty cloth sacks. She set the sacks aside and made herself comfortable beside the door, just out of sight; if Damar came by, she didn’t want him to see her until he was already through the door. “So what changed your mind?” she asked.

A mischievous smile crept onto the old man’s face. “One of my neighbors made a very good point.”

“Which was?”

“That it might be nice to watch _them_ work for us for a change.”

It was a little twisted, and not the most noble motivation for helping those in need, but she couldn’t suppress a sly smile of her own. As long as the Cardassians were treated well, no one could complain that they were being made to work for their fare share, for once. “In that case,” she continued, trying to sound as casual as the circumstances would permit, “how about the one you have working for you? Was he just assigned to this farm? How does it work?”

She thought she caught a suspicious glance in her direction, but it was gone in a flash. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she encountered mistrust; it wasn’t uncommon to occasionally uncover fellow Bajorans who were or had been in the employ of the Cardassians. Traitors who sold the lives of their own people for a few luxuries. She had often wondered just how many spies monsters like Dukat had employed before and after the Occupation. Collaborators were never scarce, and they always found ways to stay employed. But if the old man was concerned that she couldn’t be trusted, he would simply stop answering her questions. Either way, there was no real way to convince him she was trustworthy, and trying would only make it look like she had something to hide.

“It’s something like a placement program—eh,” he paused and reached for another tool. “The whole thing is complicated. So much bureaucracy just to hire someone who can’t tell the difference between a weed and a sprout. Damned _Cardassians_. They’re not the most ideal laborers.”

They certainly seemed more comfortable giving orders than taking them. Although the idea of Damar trying to weed a field of crops by hand conjured images that were delightfully amusing. The man she remembered had been a soldier through and through, and Bajoran farmers preferred traditional agricultural methods opposed to quicker, more advanced means of maintaining their crops. She could only imagine how horrified Damar must have been when he discovered that he wasn’t allowed to simply blast away every stray blade of grass he encountered.

Kira thought of asking the farmer for Damar’s current name—she very much doubted he’d had the gall to actually use his own—but that seemed too obvious. She could only prompt him for as much information as he was willing to give. “I'm sorry, I never asked your name,” she said, feigning mild embarrassment.

“Name’s Moren Kael,” he replied.

“You seem very happy here, Moren.”

He nodded, looking past the door to the field outside. “I bought this land after the Occupation,” he explained. “I had plans to pass it on to my children, or perhaps even their children.” He shrugged and turned back to the bench. “Things change.”

The farm was clearly empty aside from Damar and Moren. Kira wondered at what point he had lost his family, but she didn’t ask. Far too many Bajorans had similar stories, there was no need to make him relive his own sad history. “Thank you, for the fruit and for the information,” she said, standing. “I’ll be in the area for the next few days. Would you mind if I stopped by again?”

Moren turned and smiled a very wide, very kindly smile that showed no trace of his earlier suspicion. “I would like that…”

“Kira,” she finished for him. “Nerys.”

“I look forward to it.” He bid her farewell and continued his work. Kira could hear him chipping away at the muddy tools all the way to the gate.

Damar didn’t appear again before she reached the edge of the farm, and he had left no sign of his whereabouts, which wasn’t surprising. After doubling back to retrieve the sack of alvas he had dropped, she began the long trek back to the other end of the valley. Keeping to the roads it would only take her a couple of hours to reach the edge of the captain’s property, and then another hour to the house itself. It certainly wasn’t as scenic as the trip north had been, but it would save her nine hours of hiking rough terrain in the dark. There wasn’t much to see anyway.

 

 

Kasidy was still awake when Kira finally slipped through the front door. She was sitting on the couch reading a book. A cup of tea sat on the end table beside her. “Good evening,” she greeted Kira quietly. "I didn't expect to see you for another day or two."

Kira nodded hello and joined Kasidy on the couch. She had put together a plan during her walk back to the house, and if Kasidy could help her, she would be able to start immediately. “This may seem strange,” she said, “but do you think I could send a secure subspace transmission from here?”

“I… suppose,” Kasidy said slowly. “I’ve never tried, myself. Is everything alright?”

Kira was poised to share the news about Damar, but she couldn’t decide whether it was safe to share the encounter with anyone else, or if it would place Kasidy, Jake, and the baby at risk. She wasn’t worried that Damar would ever harm them, not after what he had been through during the war, but what if he had gone into hiding to escape something or someone? There were plenty of people still bitter over the Dominion’s loss—the Breen; Cardassian collaborators who had gambled everything on selling out their own countrymen; profiteers who had made a small fortune playing one side or the other; and anyone else who had a stake in either the Dominion’s victory or the total annihilation of the Cardassian people. Damar had made himself a hero and a target in one act of defiance. His death was probably the only thing that had spared him from assassination. “I can’t… tell you,” she said instead. “Not now. Do you mind if I use your comm?”

Kasidy pointed her toward the room on the left hand side of the house. “Through there,” she said quietly. “Try not to wake the baby.”

Kira thanked her and left the room, leaving Kasidy to read in peace.

With the economic collapse and upheaval following the war, odds were poor that she would be able to reach her contact on Cardassia Prime. Even poorer still that he would be able to help her locate Garak, who often couldn’t be found unless he wanted to be. Unfortunately for her plans, at the moment Kira couldn’t think of anyone else who would be able to help her piece together what might have happened, and make contact with the right people if Damar agreed to assume his rightful place at the head of the Cardassian government.

She sent out a message to get her contact’s attention. It was vague, and unlikely to be picked out of the thousands of Starfleet-coded transmissions sent to and from Cardassia every day. If he was available—and alive—Gul Lisset would respond as soon as it was safe to do so. Even for a devastated people, Cardassians still managed to pose as much of a threat to each other as they ever had to their enemies. The government had attempted to reform after the departure of the Dominion forces, but it was a long, brutal process. What had actually occurred was more like a civil war than a restructuring, but they tried to play it off as nothing more than normal political strife. The dissident movement—at least those dissidents remaining who hadn’t been hunted down during Dukat’s brief reign—had felt encouraged by Damar’s rebellion, and attempted to establish a “new” Cardassian state after his death. It went about as well as predicted, and left the people split into factions that couldn’t seem to agree on anything, except how much they all admired Damar. A truly ridiculous turn of events, all things considered.

After the first half hour of waiting Kira started to feel drowsy, and by the end of the next she had fallen asleep across the console with her head nestled in her arms. She woke some time in the early dawn to a gentle but insistent beeping. She shifted in her chair to stretch, and a blanket slipped from her shoulders onto the floor.

 _“Colonel,”_ came the one-word greeting from the Cardassian when she finally accepted the call.

“Lisset,” she replied. “I need you to locate someone for me.” She spoke quickly; they didn’t have very long, and she imagined Lisset had no interest in a lengthy chat anyway. “His name is Garak, but he might be going by something else these days. If you ask around I'm sure he'll find you before you find him.”

 _“And what should I tell this individual in either case?”_ Lisset asked. He narrowed his eyes and stared back at her like a bemused lizard. He was very much a caricature of his people—thin lipped, with exaggerated ridges and tiny, dark eyes. He looked like someone had started the process of shrinking his head, without the rest of him to go along with it. He leaned forward and cocked a wry smile. _“You do realize this also means you will owe_ me _a favor.”_

Kira returned her own predatory grin—a little something she had mastered over the years working with Cardassians like Dukat. “That depends on whether or not you manage to _find_ him.” She leaned back in her chair and quickly considered what message to send. She settled on the direct approach. “Just tell him I’d like to speak to him, and that it’s important.” Garak wouldn’t expect some cryptic, complicated message from her. He knew better than that. Finding him was the tricky part, not helping him find her.

 _“That’s all?”_ Lisset crooned. _“Very well. As usual, it has been a pleasure, Colonel.”_ The channel closed, and Kira was left staring at her own reflection on the blank screen. For a brief moment she wondered if it was wise, trying to obtain Garak’s aid in her search for the truth. He had just as much of a reason to celebrate Damar’s death as anyone else, ally or not. Working for the same side had never been much of a deterrent to Garak’s underhanded tactics in the past.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kira wondered why she cared so much what became of Cardassia, or why it mattered to her that Damar had slipped from history's notice. She had taken on the cause of freeing Cardassia when she was working with his rebellion, but that still didn’t make it _her_ cause.

Movement outside the window caught her eye; wispy branches of scrub waved in the corner of the windowpane, as though they had been disturbed by a gentle breeze—but they were all that was moving.

Kendra was a peaceful region, but Kira made it a point never to be caught anywhere without a sidearm nearby. She made her way across the house to the guest room and retrieved her phaser from its holster. Whoever was lurking outside couldn’t possibly hope to make it far enough from the house to escape being seen, so it was far more likely they were still out there, hoping she would stay inside. Unfortunately anyone who was that stupid might also be dangerous. Kira raised her weapon and slipped through the front door. Dawn was a cold hour at that time of year, especially so in the low trough of a valley. The sudden change from the warmth of the house to the crisp cold of the autumn air made her skin prickle, but the sound of someone moving rapidly around the corner of the house was what made her hair stand on end. She moved fast, ready to fire. It was impossible for anyone to know she had encountered Damar, even Kasidy didn't know yet. Could it have been Moren Kael? Maybe his suspicions hadn’t been so easily put aside, after all.

“Who’s there?” she called to the intruder. “I’m armed, you know. Don’t think you’ll get far if I start firing.”

She hadn’t expected an answer, and whoever it was kept quiet. Kira had nearly completed a full circuit of the house before she caught any sign of an unwelcome presence; faint tracks led from the edge of the house to the open ground surrounding it, but it was impossible for anyone to have covered the distance to the tree line in the time it took her to circle the structure just once. Following the tracks she quickly found the answer: nearby stood a small grove of young trees and shrubs just close enough to be of use as a halfway decent hiding place. She looked hard at the shape of the bushes that ringed the thin tree trunks. Tucked under some leaves, by the bare stalk of the closest shrub, was the tip of a boot. A well-worn pair of work boots just large enough to have made the tracks around the house. She circled the grove, pretending to have trouble peering through the bushes, until she was standing right next to where he was hiding. With one eye on the concealing shrub she pulled her phaser and pointed it directly at him. “You can come out now.”

A resigned sigh came from the foliage. “I often wondered how I would have fared in the Obsidian Order,” Damar muttered.

Kira was only mildly surprised to learn the identity of her stalker. For once it was actually a relief to find a Cardassian lurking where he didn’t belong. “Did this settle any of those lingering doubts for you?” she asked.

“I think I can safely put aside concerns that I missed my true calling. Though I doubt operatives in the Order actually spent much time hiding in bushes. Good morning, Colonel.”

“Hello again, Damar. Assuming you are actually admitting that you're you, now. What are you _doing_ here?” She tucked the phaser into her belt and crossed her arms. His excuse would probably be very entertaining, if he didn’t just take off again. Unfortunate for him that there were no fields to aid in his escape this time.

“Would you actually believe me if I told you the truth?” he asked.

“You could always try.”

Damar nodded. He leaned down to brush some of the dirt from his pants, which seemed pointless given the state of his clothes overall. He was obviously stalling, probably deciding on the right way to approach the topic of peeping through Kasidy's windows. “I wanted to see if your threat to contact Central Command had been legitimate.”

“And?”

He looked none-too-pleased with the results of his foray into espionage. “I couldn’t hear anything through those damned windows.” That brought a smile to Kira's face. She tried to hide it with the back of her hand and a fake cough, but Damar wasn’t fooled. “You could at least try to take this seriously,” he complained, frowning and looking around as though he expected others to overhear his humiliation.

“You really were very easy to find,” she said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just so surprising that you survived your defection as long as you did before we came along,” she chuckled.

“Thank you,” he said bitterly. He endured her humor at his expense a moment longer, until finally he crossed his arms and resorted to staring her down to make her stop laughing. “Are you done? I’d like to know who you were talking to, now that you know I was listening.”

“That depends,” Kira said, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing on Bajor?”

“It’s not something I prefer to explain while standing in a bush.”

Kira’s amusement quickly turned to frustration. “Well you’re going to have to explain it somewhere.”

She could see him clench his jaw, and he frowned down at his feet before finally nodding. “Alright,” he said, pointing toward the northwest. “There’s a trading post on the other side of that ridge. Meet me there tonight, close to sunset. I’ll explain everything.”

"Why not now?" she demanded. "You're already here."

Damar shook his head. "I have to be back before Moren wakes up. If he discovers I'm missing, he'll alert the authorities. I don't need that kind of attention."

It seemed strange at first, the thought of one farmhand's disappearance being such a cause for concern. But they were on Bajor, and Damar was a Cardassian. A dark history of distrust colored even the most innocent mistakes where his people were concerned. “I have your word you’ll be there?” she asked.

“You have my word.”

He seemed sincere. She wanted to believe that counted for something. “Tonight, then,” she said. “Don’t lie to me, Damar.”

 

 

Kira found the trading post just after sunset, with only a small sliver of light still peering over the mountaintop to cast a fiery orange glow across the valley. The crossroads post was small, and most of the stalls had been closed already for the evening, which she assumed was part of the reason Damar suggested that time for their meeting. A single inn at the end of the main avenue was the only building still serving patrons. It was lit from within, and the sounds of friendly conversation poured out onto the open street. No one inside would be able to hear a quiet conversation taking place at the other end of the avenue.

Damar eventually appeared between two of the stalls, arriving well after sundown. It was too dark for him to see the frown she aimed at him as he sauntered up to her like a man without a care in the world. “Colonel,” he greeted her with a nod.

“I’m not sure what the formal greeting is for a dead man,” Kira mused sarcastically. “I don’t think rank counts when you’re not supposed to be alive.”

“Maybe we should switch to first names, then,” Damar suggested.

Kira ignored the attempt at repartee and went straight for the point. “So, what are you doing here? No sarcastic answers. No deflection. Just the truth.” At that point any information would have counted as marked progress.

“Well, where would you like me to begin?” he asked as he sat down in front of the stall beside her. “Back on Cardassia, or here?”

“How about you start with your _death_.”

Damar nodded slowly, and Kira could see him wrestling with whatever it was he felt demanded his absence from his homeworld. He drew his knees up and draped his forearms across them, idly picking dirt from his fingernails as the minutes ticked by in silence. Kira watched him, and even in her impatience she couldn’t help but notice how odd he looked out of uniform. She had seen him in civilian clothes on Cardassia, but it wasn’t the same as the rough, threadbare weave of a farmhand. His trousers were stained with dirt and torn in more places than she could count without asking him to stand up and turn around. It made him look… _diminished_ , somehow. “Garak said you were dead,” she said finally, after giving him what she felt was more than enough time to start on his own.

“Garak may be a decent tailor, and an arguably better spy, but he is no doctor,” explained Damar. He chuckled quietly to himself. “I wasn’t dead—not quite yet. Tricorders are somewhat more accurate than a quick glance during a firefight. When the Federation and Klingon forces arrived to take the capital, I had the good fortune of being tended to by a Starfleet physician who didn’t recognize me.”

“ _Fortune?_ ” Kira glared incredulously until Damar, his face locked in a frustrated pout, looked away. “Do you know what it would mean to your people to know you’re alive? To the Alpha Quadrant? You hid yourself away here on Bajor because, what, you were just tired of it all? Or were you scared of facing the results of the rebellion _you_ started.” She looked down on him with no effort to hide her disdain. “Afraid of the new Cardassia you were so eager to create before?”

He rounded on her from his seat in the dirt, his features shadowed in the low light and twisted with all the contempt he could muster. “There was nothing else I could give them, I’d already given everything!” he fired back. “Besides,” he said as his temper suddenly faded and he slumped back against the front of the stall, “I did far more for them as a martyr than I ever could have as a leader. I’m no politician. I think you would agree that my time under Weyoun’s heel proved that. And my rebellion…”

“Leading isn’t just about politics,” Kira said. “You understood what Cardassia needed—the changes it had to make to become a part of the Alpha Quadrant again. To move forward and grow instead of stagnating in the nostalgia of old _glories_.” She spat out the last word like a vile poison. To her, it was. “You understood that better than anyone. It’s why you rebelled.”

A bitter laugh from Damar broke through the evening air. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. The system—the very _foundation_ of our society—that is what made Cardassia strong. That was what was supposed to make it great.”

“Supposed to,” Kira reminded him. “Last I recall you didn’t seem to think blind patriotism was such a good idea anymore.”

“Things change,” Damar muttered. “Cardassia will too, with or without me. The Dominion saw to that.”

It was almost as though nothing was left of the man she had spent months fighting side-by-side with to free his homeworld. As though that had been a temporary guise he adopted for the cause, and abandoned once his task was completed. Only it wasn’t completed, not yet. “Cardassia will change,” she said quietly. “But it may not be for the better. Who knows if they’ll survive the next mistake.”

“There is nothing I would be able to do about that.”

“Well,” she said, standing, “I guess we’ll never know. Thank you, Damar, this has been a very informative conversation.” She left him there by the stall and started back toward Kasidy’s. It was a two hour walk in the dark, with a chill in the evening air that would have been uncomfortable if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with her disappointment. An emotional response she was still trying to wrap her head around.

“You’re not going to guilt me into going back, Kira,” Damar called after her. When she didn’t answer he tried again: “I’m not a fool!”

She was almost to the end of the row of stalls when he started after her. “I will not listen to lectures from a Bajoran terrorist about how to conduct myself as a Cardassian!”

“How about how to conduct yourself as a soldier, as a leader?” she said over her shoulder. “Or is _that_ too much to ask of you? Did you sacrifice your integrity, too?”

She could hear his footsteps quicken. It really was a very simple matter to goad Cardassian pride. “What do you want from me? Should I go back and pretend nothing happened, that I was blissfully unaware I had helped Dukat sell our people to the Dominion for slaughter? Is that what you’d like from me?”

 _There_ was the true face of his shame. Or at least a significant part of it. Either way, it was at least a place to start. Kira stopped and turned, finding Damar only a few paces behind her. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she said honestly. “You can try to make up for your mistakes, but this isn’t the way to do it. This only buries your shame, it doesn’t erase it.”

Real anger burned in Damar’s eyes as he stepped up to loom over her. Anger and pain. It was very much like the look she had seen come over Garak after Ziyal’s death, and then later, Mila’s. A look she was unaccustomed to seeing from Cardassians, and one she didn't enjoy the way she had dreamt in her youth. “I cannot hope to atone for the things I’ve done," he whispered angrily. "And I don’t deserve to be lauded for the one time I chose to do the right thing!”

“So you choose to hide yourself away on Bajor while your people struggle to rebuild from the war?”

Damar barked a bitter laugh that made Kira’s blood boil. “What do you care of Cardassia’s troubles?” he asked. “I send most of my pay to the relief effort. I haven’t forgotten my people are dying.”

“Well!” Kira laughed, mimicking his tone. “That is so very _generous_ of you!”

“What would you have me do? Live off fallen alvas in the field? I did what was needed of me and then I got out of the way, and I’ve made my peace with the life I have here.” He came a few steps closer and looked over her with the same contempt she had seen from him every day of the Dominion’s occupation of Deep Space Nine. Only now she could see just how fake it truly was. “The rest is none of your business, _Bajoran_.”

“Don’t try that with me, Damar. You _made_ it my business when you asked the Federation for help with your rebellion.”

Damar sneered at her, posturing like he was ready for a fight until his better judgment kicked in, and he backed off again. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, gesturing to the quiet street surrounding them, “the war is over.”

“Yes, and you were instrumental in helping to end it. Now you need to take responsibility for that and lead your people the way you were supposed to. You can worry about making up for your mistakes later, after Cardassia is rebuilt. After you have reconciled with the rest of the Alpha Quadrant and atoned for your people's mistakes!”

“Don’t you understand? There _is_ no atonement, no making up for what I’ve done—what we've done. I can’t bring back a billion Cardassians any more than I can bring back one girl, no matter how many speeches I give.” He leveled a pained gaze at her and shook his head. “You of all people should understand.”

Kira couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If he thought hiding behind Ziyal was going to make her back down, he was sadly mistaken. “How _dare you,_ ” she hissed.

Damar seemed genuinely confused. “What?”

“You think because you feel _bad_ about what you’ve done that it means you can bury your head in the sand and forget about it? I hate to be the one to tell you, Damar, that’s not how it works! You have to bear the consequences of your choices just like everyone else!”

“It isn’t going to make what happened any better,” he muttered.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t try!”

Finally fed up with her lectures, Damar growled something vulgar and stomped off down the avenue in the direction of Moren’s farm. This time Kira made no attempt to stop him. She couldn’t choose between disgust, disbelief, or disappointment, and no part of her felt like entertaining more of his self pity. He was determined to place his own guilt before everything and _everyone_  else, and shouting common sense at him obviously wasn’t having an effect. Instead she went off her own way, back to Kasidy’s, and what was left of her leave.

Damar wasn’t her responsibility, and if he wouldn’t listen to reason, then he wasn’t her concern, either. She had once harbored a misguided hope that some day the Cardassian people would recognize the wrongs they had committed against the Bajorans—not some flimsy treaty or an unspoken agreement to leave each other alone, but real reconciliation. That hope was built almost entirely on her experiences during the last days of the war, and the work they had done to help liberate Cardassia from the Dominion. For _once_ , it seemed like the reality of the Occupation had broken through that shell of conditioning that cocooned Cardassians and made them oblivious of the depth of their own crimes. Others had tried, after the war. Some of the surviving members of Damar’s resistance movement had campaigned heavily for an attempt at peace and some form of restitution between Cardassia and Bajor. The result was a tenuous peace and minor trade between the two worlds, in addition to the refugee program that Damar himself had used to disappear, apparently. It just wasn’t enough. A few homeless Cardassians helping elderly farmers pick their crops wasn’t fixing the problems that still lingered close to a decade after the Occupation.

There was a time the slow decline of Cardassian society would have filled Kira with a righteous joy, and she might have celebrated the missed opportunity Damar’s death ensured for his people. But she had seen the Jem’Hadar execute innocent men and women in the streets, and watched as they reduced cities to rubble as punishment for the crime of standing up for freedom. She had been there when the Cardassians fighting at her side were gunned down trying to liberate their people. It was difficult now, trying to recall what that bitter vindication should have felt like.


	2. Chapter 2

She spent the next day relaxing, enjoying the remainder of her leave on Bajor the way she was meant to; without the distraction of a stubborn, selfish Cardassian looming overhead like a dark cloud. Jake returned from his trip in the afternoon, which gave them plenty of time to catch up. Surrounded by friends, Kira almost managed to set aside her argument with Damar, and the looming dread that crept into her gut every time she thought of the opportunity they had missed with Damar’s supposed death. Spending time with Kasidy and Jake brought her just a bit closer to something like true calm, though it was a short-lived peace; the results of the search she had commissioned Lisset to undertake on her behalf, which she had almost forgotten, returned that evening in the form of a call during dinner. Kira was still laughing at a story Jake had told when she sat down and tapped the screen to accept the transmission.  
  
_“Ah, Colonel Kira. It's so wonderful to hear from you again after so long. It seems like an eternity has passed since we last spoke.”_  
  
“Garak.” Kira quickly turned and checked the door; luckily she had remembered to close it behind her.  
  
_“You sound surprised. You did seek_ me _out, remember?”_ He leaned closer to the screen and smirked. _“Are you having a good time on Bajor?”_  
  
Kira brushed aside the casual banter and instead focused on the reason she had sought Garak out in the first place. Although Damar’s confession had satisfied most of her curiosity—if it was the truth and there wasn't more to it—she still had a few questions he'd left unanswered. She hoped Garak might be able to help fill in the gaps Damar had skipped the night before. “I met someone here. A Cardassian,” she said, pausing to once more go over all the reasons she had decided it was worth it to expose Damar. Yet again she was faced with the question of how wise it was for all parties to take that risk. Was it even her right to reveal him to others?  
  
Fortunately for her moral quandary, Garak was a step ahead as usual. _“I see,”_ he said. _“Tell me, how is our good friend Damar faring these days?”_  
  
Kira stared in shock. She expected Garak to know certain things, that was the nature of his entire professional experience outside of tailoring, after all. She couldn’t imagine how he had come to know about Damar, though. “How—”  
  
_“You don’t think a man as…_ notable _as Legate Damar could resurrect himself without someone taking notice, do you? As it happens, I was the first person he approached for assistance after he ‘excused’ himself from the Federation triage facility. It was quite an honor.”_  
  
“Then why didn’t you tell anyone?” Kira demanded. Garak was undeniably self-serving, and trusting him was always a gamble, but he wasn’t a fool; he knew what Damar had come to represent for Cardassia during the rebellion. Better than almost anyone else besides possibly Kira herself, he understood the changes Damar’s influence could bring to their entire way of life. Then again, maybe that was _why_ he hadn’t said anything.  
  
Garak seemed to sense her apprehension. He shook his head and smiled in a way that he undoubtedly felt was disarming. It wasn’t. _“I assure you, I only kept my silence for Damar’s benefit. He insisted I keep his continued existence a secret from everyone.”_  
  
“And you thought that was the right thing to do?”  
  
_“Truthfully? I thought it was terribly convenient that everyone believed Damar was dead, and there I had him all to myself.”_ A dangerous glint in Garak’s eye punctuated his brief pause. _“But, as usual, sentimentality overcame opportunity. He_ did _give his life for the cause, in a manner of speaking. So to answer your question: I thought only of my dear comrade’s wishes. Whether right or wrong, Damar has made his decision.”_  
  
That didn’t satisfy Kira. She leaned forward on the console and glared through the screen at Garak. “It was the wrong decision! He’s just _hiding_ here!”  
  
_“Do I detect a note of concern in your voice, Colonel?”_  
  
Kira shot back in her seat. “What? Why would I be concerned—”  
  
_“For Cardassia’s interests? Well, I don’t know. I assume it has something to do with you part in fighting to liberate her people,”_ Garak said. _“Those were awfully long days, hidden away in that basement.”_ He stopped again for what was almost certainly nothing more than dramatic effect, and then smiled. _“Weren’t they?”_  
  
  
  
  
The second to last morning of Kira’s trip was marked by a downpour that seemed determined to drown the lower half of the valley in the south. It wasn’t yet bad enough to send anyone scrambling for higher ground, but it put an end to most of the activity in the region, and left Kira sitting in Kasidy's guest room, entirely too alone with her thoughts. Her conversation with Garak gnawed at her; he had clearly been suggesting that her frustration over Damar’s choice to remain “dead” had more to do with her personal feelings than any rational concerns. What bothered her most was that she couldn't be certain he was _wrong_. Yes, she had fought alongside Damar, lived with him for a short time, and together with Garak and Mila they had managed to make the most of their self-imposed basement exile on Cardassia. But that was wartime, and she had had no choice but to trust and look after her comrades for her own sake. That was how you survived when you were surrounded by your enemies. The Occupation had taught her that—it wasn’t like she had been fond of everyone she worked beside in the resistance, either. Maybe some lingering responsibility had influenced her feelings on a more superficial level when it came to Damar, but it hardly guided her actions _now_. Garak was obviously toying with her for some end only he could comprehend. Leave it to another scheming Cardassian to make her second guess her own feelings. Damar didn’t mean anything to her, he was barely her ally for more than a few months, and that had only been on Captain Sisko’s orders. Kira had no stake in his personal comfort or his moral angst. What she _did_ care about was his influence over the people of Cardassia. He was wasting an opportunity that might never come again, and she simply couldn’t accept that.  
  
Unfortunately she couldn’t seem to make herself comfortable anywhere in the house, either. There was nothing to do but stare out the window at the rain, and she was too anxious to sleep. Despite knowing full well what a terrible idea it was, she really wanted to go back to the farm and try to make Damar listen to her. Not that she believed it would work. Yelling at him again might be satisfying, at least _…_  
  
Her hand was on the door before she even bothered to stop and think about what she was doing. It was pouring outside, and the walk to Moren’s farm would take hours, even if she kept to the roads. She was crazy to think going there just to vent her frustration was worth the time or the effort. Besides, she already knew what he would say, assuming he even listened long enough to let her finish.  
  
And yet despite all that, she still reached for a hooded shawl that had been left hanging by the front door. After leaving a brief message for Jake and Kasidy, set out for the north with every intention of trying to force some sense into Damar's thick skull anyway.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
It was raining too hard to work in the field. Most of the ground around the alvas vines had turned into a thick, muddy paste that seemed to be composed mainly of clay. It washed down from the hillsides under the endless onslaught of the rain, and there was no question in Damar’s mind whose sole job it would be to clear the field of the hard layer that would form once the soil dried. Occasionally the old man found some ridiculous task that Damar was convinced had been designed specifically to cause him hours of grief. Sometimes he thought it might have been easier if he had just remained dead.  
  
“Well?” Moren called from the door to the shed. “Are you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna work?”  
  
“It is _pouring_ rain. I can’t work out there in this weather.”  
  
“Then I guess I can’t pay you in this weather.”  
  
Damar had suffered under the cruelty of vindictive superior officers, and he had endured the cheerful viciousness of Weyoun and the indifferent evil of his Changeling god, but apparently the warring powers of the galaxy had failed to take into account the casual and highly effective malice that an aged Bajoran farmer could heap upon those in his employ. Maybe the Founders should have considered forming an Alliance with Bajor’s senior citizens, rather than the Breen. They might have managed to actually win the war.  
  
“Where are you going?” he asked when Moren stepped out of the shed. “Aren’t you going to help me?”  
  
Moren looked up at the sky from under the shelter of the eaves. “Too much rain,” he said. “I’ll be inside the house with a warm drink.”  
  
Damar sneered at Moren’s back as he ambled off in the direction of the house. Insufferable bitterness seemed to be a common trait among the Bajoran population. It certainly ran like wildfire in Kira’s veins. The woman’s candid and very _detailed_ account of his failure to take responsibility for his people had been rattling around in his mind since they parted ways at the trading post. He had barely managed more than a few hours’ sleep for two nights. Every so often he struggled with the urge to march back across the valley to find her. He hadn’t exactly thought ahead to what he would do after that; his daydreams generally skipped over the finer details and ended with the colonel eventually accepting that he was right, as usual, and she had been grievously wrong.  
  
She was infuriating. How dare she, a Bajoran terrorist, insinuate that _he_ was a coward? After she had seen with her own eyes what he was willing to do for his people? What he had sacrificed for them?  
  
He stepped out into the rain and the mud, which instantly found every hole in his well-worn boots and began filling in whatever space his feet didn’t occupy. It was a truly unique and terrible sensation. He had no doubt his feet would be caked in filth by the time he was done.  
  
As he worked Damar muttered to himself, mostly about Kira. He filled first one bucket, then another, and after a while he had filled so many buckets with so much of the small round fruit that he could no longer carry them back to the barn on his own without considerable difficulty. Walking through the muck—which had by that point reached the top of his ankles—was slow-going even without the added weight of a bucket full of produce. Worse yet, the buckets themselves were all gradually filling with water as they sat in the open field.  
  
“This is ridiculous!” he shouted at no one. He kicked at the ground, which produced a satisfying splash of thick mud that splattered across the nearby plants and the struts underneath.  
  
Satisfying, until he realized he still had to pick those vines.  


* * *

  
  
  
Kira found the cool rain numbed her anger far more quickly than she had anticipated. She tried to carry her fury the full length of the road to Moren’s farm, but by the time she spotted the tops of the orchard trees over the last hill, she was already contemplating turning back. She stopped at the crest and looked down over the fields, comfortable in her certainty that she still had time to decide whether or not to turn back.  
  
Restraint wasn’t in her nature. She had never been one to mince words or approach a difficult subject softly. She knew Damar was aware of that; he’d had plenty of opportunities to experience it firsthand. Unfortunately for both of them, her usual methods didn’t seem to be working, and pushing Damar only seemed to make him dig his heels in even harder, which only made her angrier. Would it matter what she said, when she had already said everything that made the most sense? After giving it a little more thought, she finally decided to turn back. The trip to Moren’s hadn’t been a total waste, at least. The long walk to the farm had cleared her head, and she felt much more at peace with the decision to let Damar enjoy his coward's death. He would regret it, but that was hardly her problem. Bajor could thrive on its own without Cardassia’s apology, and Kira could obviously do the same without tying up loose ends with a stubborn fool.  
  
As she readjusted her shawl and took one last look at the fields below, Kira thought she caught sight of someone moving about between the rows of alvas vines. The rain masked all sound, but she could still see a great deal of exaggerated movement, and then a wave of mud swept up and over some of the plants. That had to be Damar. She couldn’t imagine he had volunteered to go out in the downpour, which probably accounted for his foul temper. He continued waving his arms about over his head, making gestures at the vines, and at one point he hurled an empty bucket up over the rows into another part of the field. It was clearly the wrong time to have any sort of serious discussion; all the better that she had decided to stop pursuing the matter. With her hood pulled down to keep out the rain, she turned and walked away.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
What had started out as a kneejerk reaction to a momentary annoyance quickly became a full-blown outburst as Damar took his spontaneous rage out on everything around him. It turned out that amounted to little more than the muddy earth beneath his feet and one bucket, but he felt renewed by the act regardless. He spun around to look for something else he could throw, and that was when he spotted her, walking away from the nearby hilltop. She had something wrapped around her head and shoulders, but he had no trouble recognizing her from a silhouette; she had skulked about the Cardassian capital with him for so long he would have recognized that slight frame and self-assured bearing anywhere. But why was she leaving? She had walked all the way to the farm in the rain, only to turn around and go back? Damar shifted his weight to pull one foot up out of the mud, and it was then that he remembered just what he had spent the last few minutes doing in plain view of anyone who cared to look; suddenly Kira's departure made much more sense. Setting aside his anger in favor of curiosity, he picked his way out of the swampy field and ran after her. By the time he was close enough to call out to her she was already approaching the next hill, slowly making her way around mud puddles and trying to avoid the rain-beaten troughs that dotted the road like small lakes. She didn’t hear him the first time, so he raised his voice over the rain and called again, and again. After the third attempt she turned around, and for a moment she seemed to hover somewhere between surprise and confusion. Damar felt it was a nice change from the usual hatred and disdain, even if he didn’t quite understand. It wasn’t as though she had forgotten he lived on that farm.  
  
He jogged the remaining distance between them and came to a stop on the other side of a shallow pool that had formed in the worn tracks on the road. Having finally reached her, he suddenly had no idea what to say, and the small puddle seemed more like a wide gulf, with his dignity on the far shore. _“What are you doing here?”_ felt a little too much like an interrogation, and _“Why are you walking away?”_ seemed inappropriately pathetic. He settled on staring uncomfortably into the distance until she said something.  
  
“I thought I should come talk to you one more time,” she said. The rain was so loud that her voice seemed to come from far away, though he could have reached out to touch her without stretching. “But you seemed… occupied.” She looked down at his legs.  
  
Damar looked over himself, noting the mud that covered him up to his thighs, and shrugged. “There’s always work to be done here. Even in the rain, it seems.”  
  
“I can see that.”  
  
“You wanted to talk?” he prompted carefully.  
  
“Well,” Kira said, taking her time and drawing Damar to the limits of his patience. “At first I thought I would try yelling at you again. And then I thought maybe I should apologize for the last time I yelled at you.” She looked back up and quickly glanced to the side. “Along the way I lost interest in both. You’re not going to go back, are you.”  
  
Damar shook his head. “I’m no good to Cardassia now.” He could see Kira struggling with her temper, and it was somewhat alarming, while at the same time oddly endearing that she would even bother to try. It obviously wasn’t for his sake; he imagined after a while even she probably got tired of being angry.  
  
“Would you give me the time to tell you why I think that’s wrong?” she said. Then she laughed. “If you know anything about me, you understand how rare it is for me to ask permission to speak my mind. I hope you appreciate it.”  
  
“Rare?” Damar said, in what was probably an unwise attempt to lighten the mood. When he realized she didn’t find his humor nearly as amusing as he did, he hastened to change the subject. “It’s noted,” he said. “But perhaps we should get out of the rain, first. I don’t know about you, but this is the coldest day I’ve experienced yet on this damned… on your planet.”  
  
He waited for her to start walking, and then followed a few paces behind. Once they passed the fields he took over leading the way. There was a loft above the barn where Moren had set up Damar’s room, if it could indeed be called that. The space consisted of a bed, a few shelves, one stool, and a table with no chairs. As living quarters went it was drafty, dreary, and incredibly cramped. The bed itself wasn’t very appealing, either; it had appeared acceptable from a distance the first time Moren showed him around, but upon closer inspection it became obvious the “bed” was nothing more than a bare pallet draped in scraps of cloth. Lying on it was even worse, and Damar had taken to stuffing the uneven spots with grass from the fallow fields whenever he started to feel the wood poking through. He spared Kira the experience and instead offered her a stool, which he had recently procured for himself specifically so that he didn’t have to use the bed more often than was necessary. “So,” he said once she was seated and he had made himself “comfortable” on the edge of the bed. “I believe you wanted another opportunity to convince me that I should return to Cardassia.”  
  
Kira wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter, as usual. “There _are_ Cardassians who share your open minded approach to certain subjects, even the Occupation. But it’s not enough,” she said. Damar was surprised by her passion. He had always just assumed the Cardassian people and their opinions of Bajor meant nothing to Kira, as long as they left her planet and its people alone. Regret on their part might have offered satisfying vindication, but he wouldn’t have thought she cared beyond that. She had certainly never mentioned harboring any hope for reconciliation when they were working together. “You aren’t doing your people any favors by hiding here, Damar. A new Cardassia has to rise in place of the old one. But it’s not, and it won’t, unless you step up to guide your people down the path that will take them there. The _right_ path. They united under your name before, but with you gone there is no centralizing figure there to make them work together.” As she spoke she leaned forward on the stool, until the back legs lifted off the ground and she seemed poised to fall. It had the effect of making her seem like she was looking down on him. For such a small woman, she had a commanding presence.  
  
Damar waved that—and her misplaced faith in his ability to rally the people once again—aside. “I already told you, I don’t deserve respect or praise for what I did,” he said. “I certainly don’t deserve to lead a new Cardassia. I’m a relic of the old one, and I should fade the same way.” It bothered him that she couldn’t see the selflessness in his decision to remain out of history’s path. For once, his choices were about more than his own interests. It seemed like Kira purposely refused to acknowledge that.  
  
Perhaps, he wondered, it was all based on the mistaken belief that he had switched sides for purely altruistic reasons. He had never explained to her or the others exactly _what_ had triggered his treachery, partly because he assumed they knew. But what if she believed it had been some sort of world-shaking epiphany? That he simply woke up one morning and realized he was wrong? Was it possible for someone like her to be _that_ naïve? Despite his numerous and ultimately futile attempts to deny it even to himself, Damar’s struggle with right and wrong had started long before the day he released Weyoun’s two favorite prisoners and turned on the Dominion—even before the station was recaptured by Captain Sisko and his crew, and the tide of war turned against them. For months he had watched Dukat stroll around the station, practically arm-in-arm with Weyoun, casually ordering fleet after fleet into battle and waving aside the casualty lists while he focused all of his attention on impressing Kira. Even there Damar had turned a blind eye against his discomfort. At the time he had considered informing Kira that she was only encouraging further advances by responding to Dukat’s games, but they were enemies then, and he had forced himself not to care. Especially after their… disagreement over Ziyal. Damar unconsciously rubbed the side of his face as he thought about it. Another bad memory, for many reasons.

“I am responsible for _war crimes_ , Colonel,” he continued. “I ordered attacks on Federation ships and outposts, and personally signed the orders that condemned captured enemies. Had it not been for the Founder’s edict granting ridiculous territory concessions to the Breen, I probably would have had your friends executed. I may have even felt pleased by their deaths. You know all this.” He took a deep breath and set his elbows on his knees. At the moment the floor was much easier to look at than Kira. “My reasons for betraying the Founders had much less to do with right and wrong and much _more_ to do with my own building indignity. I knew the alliance with the Dominion was wrong well before I finally summoned the courage to actually do something about it. _Long_ before that, in fact. Even then, I still stood back and watched them send my people to die needlessly in a war that made us servants to the Founders. Tell me, do I deserve to be their leader after that?”  
  
“Do you know why I didn’t fight the order to help you with your rebellion?” Kira asked. If she had been affected by his admission in any way, she didn't show it. “Why I didn’t just refuse when Captain Sisko told me _I_ would have to be the one to train your men to fight a guerilla war?” When Damar shook his head she took a deep, steadying breath, and said, “It was Odo. All Odo. It had nothing to do with your _cause_ , or doing the right thing. We were at war with his people, and it was hurting him more than he would ever admit to me. I just wanted it to end. So if that meant helping you, then that was what I had to do.”  
  
Something about the mention of Kira’s former lover unsettled Damar in a way he couldn’t quite describe or fully understand. Odo, who had managed to persuade the Founder to abandon her bloody struggle for the Alpha Quadrant, as well as her death grip on Cardassia; who had done more than Damar and his pathetic rebellion had ever managed, and with only a single act. Just the thought of him felt like an unpleasant taste in Damar’s mouth that took up too much space in his throat. He tried to swallow it back and focus on what she was saying, but the discomfort remained.  
  
“I’m not saying you haven’t made mistakes,” said Kira, apparently unaware of Damar’s reaction to her mention of Odo. She shook her head, sending little droplets of water in every direction. “I know your mistakes—I know them better than anyone. But this isn’t _about_ you.” She leaned back to pull the wet shawl from around her shoulders. It was drenched, like the rest of her, and water dripped steadily from one end as she looked around for some place to hang it.  
  
“Here.” Damar reached for the shawl and draped it over the remnant of a broken shelf.  
  
“You need to remember that,” Kira continued. “Whether or not you deserve it isn’t the issue.” She watched him for a moment while he pretended to mull over the merits of her argument, until it seemed she lost interest. After that she stood and began poking around the loft without bothering to ask for an invitation.  
  
“What are you doing?” he asked.  
  
“Looking for something to warm this _barn_.” The word “barn” was weighted with so much contempt that Damar almost felt offended. It wasn’t even his barn. “If I’m cold, you have to be freezing,” she added.  
  
That was definitely an accurate assessment; he was miserably uncomfortable, as usual. He nodded and said, “I didn’t realize the seasons changed quite so drastically on this planet.” He’d never been to Bajor before his “death” sent him in search of a safe place to remain anonymous. It wasn’t exactly what he had expected.  
  
“Especially in this region. It’ll only get worse in winter, too. Here.” She lifted a large square of cloth—it couldn’t be called a blanket in even the most generous sense. “Put this around your shoulders.”  
  
Damar leaned away when she tried to do it for him. “No, thank you.”  
  
“Just take it.”  
  
“I would rather not.”  
  
“You’re cold.”  
  
“It’s nothing new, and that rag is filthy.” He stared up at her defiantly. He would not be nannied by a tiny Bajoran woman. “If it’s such an acceptable substitute for an actual blanket, maybe you should use it.”  
  
Kira looked over the tattered cloth for a moment before balling it up and tossing it aside. “I should get back,” she said. “They'll wonder where I am.”  
  
“I suppose disappearing in the middle of a storm would alarm your hosts. I doubt you’re anxious to involve them in all of this by telling them about it, either.” That had been a poor attempt at seeking confirmation that she hadn’t yet shared his whereabouts with anyone, and it only earned him a weary frown.  
  
“I left a message for them,” she muttered. After a pause she shook her head, sending a few more droplets flying. Most landed on Damar. “I should go,” she said again, and Damar had a feeling it was more for her own benefit than his.  
  
For an unsettling instant he contemplated stopping her. He wasn’t sure why, but when she started to leave he felt a quiet surge of panic, as though he had only seconds to act, or risk missing a moment that would change everything. One that might never come again if he didn’t seize it while he had the chance. When she turned and reached for the rails of the stepladder he shot to his feet. The idea was to be polite and walk her back outside; the reality was his hand on her wrist. “Stay,” he said quietly. All the common sense and self preservation in his being told him to back off before she had a chance to batter him back into a hospital, but he persisted. Instead he pulled her over and backed her against the wall of the loft. Not so close that she couldn’t move away if she wanted to, but close enough to make his intentions clear—whatever those were. He wasn’t completely sure just _what_ he was doing, but he knew it could easily get him killed. “Stay,” he repeated, leaning in closer.  
  
It was foolish, and he didn’t know if the rewards outweighed the risks, and yet he hadn’t felt so certain about anything since he had woken up to the bright, cold clamor of an antiseptic Starfleet hospital. The colonel’s body so close to his, warmth radiating off her like a soothing aura. She invaded his senses without even meaning to, and suddenly it was all he could think of; being with her, _having_ her. The realization stalled him for just an instant; why _now?_  It was true that Kira seemed to draw his attention whenever she so much as walked into a room, and he found her oddly intriguing, but it didn’t change anything between them, did it? In the past he always chalked it up to perverse fascination with his enemy whenever he found himself watching her just a little longer than necessary, or anticipating the opportunity to seek her out. There wasn’t much else he _could_ do. Acting on those fleeting urges had never occurred to him, and he wouldn’t have shared his thoughts with Dukat for very obvious reasons even _if_ he had been more than distantly aware they existed. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from a few generous and rather obvious glances, or the occasional touch as he—or she—stormed past. All in the name of healthy animosity. But now things were different, _he_ was different, and Kira was there. She was in his arms and she hadn't pushed him away. Suddenly he had no excuses to fall back on, no witty remarks or unreasonable demands to make simply for his own amusement.  
  
Something in the back of his mind screamed for him to stop—for his own safety, if not to preserve some shred of his remaining dignity. He shoved those thoughts into a dark corner where they couldn’t tell him not to do something stupid, like kiss her. He briefly wondered if she could feel the nervous hammering in his chest when he leaned against her. His lips touched hers, and suddenly coherent thought became a luxury; nothing else existed but Kira. He let go of her wrist and wrapped his arms around her waist. In turn she pressed the full length of her body against his, with every warm curve touching him in ways that pushed away his discomfort from the cold. She was all fire, barely contained and ready to burst. Damar felt the tug of slender fingers on his tunic, pulling him closer as though they could somehow share the same space if they tried hard enough. His fingers fumbled with her blouse, and for the first time in his life that he could recall, he wondered if he might not be up to the task of removing a woman’s clothes. At least not sober. When it became apparent that he was going to need help, Kira slapped his hands away and hurriedly unfastened the ties herself. The gauzy cloth fell to the side, and Damar leaned back to take an appreciative look.  
  
That was when everything fell apart.  
  
Kira recoiled, at the same time pushing Damar away with so much force he stumbled and fell backwards onto the bed. At first he thought she was just being playful, and he even chuckled a little to himself, but when he looked up and found her clutching the front of her blouse to cover herself, the cold reality set in. “Kira—”  
  
“Don't, just— _don't_ ,” she snapped. Then in a whirlwind of rage she turned and fled down the ladder, storming from the barn without so much as a backwards glance. It all happened so fast, Damar had no chance to object or even apologize.  
  
He was left with nothing but silence and a profound feeling of emptiness over something he hadn’t asked for or expected, but now knew he would never be able to make himself forget. It didn’t take a great deal of thought to understand why Kira had been so upset. Damar was angry with _himself_ for having so little self control; even if every cell in his body ached to touch her again, what could have possessed him to act on his urges like that?

When he heard the splash of feet stomping through the rain outside that same anxious panic began to knot itself around his stomach, and before he knew it Damar was on his feet, heading for the ladder. It was only when he had turned and started down that he caught sight of her shawl, still hanging on the broken shelf where he had set it earlier. Her walk home would be twice as miserable without some sort of cover. If he couldn’t make up for his own impulsive behavior, or convince Kira to give him a chance, the very least he could do was return her shawl. A gesture of goodwill, or perhaps a peace offering, given what had just happened.

After retrieving her shawl, he followed the same path Kira had taken down the ladder and across the floor of the barn. One of the wide double doors remained open to the rain, allowing a steady stream of water to pool just inside the threshold. Damar frowned at the gray sky and the flooding fields and stepped out into the downpour, which quickly soaked every part of him that had managed to dry off inside the barn. In his right hand he clutched Kira’s shawl, balled up in an effort to keep some of it out of the rain. He scanned Moren’s property all the way to the road, but there was no sign of her anywhere; Damar took that as an indication that she had chosen to run back, for any number reasons, the least of which was probably the weather. He trudged out into the open to get a better view of the road, pulling his boots up out of the mud with each step until he reached the point where it would do him no good to continue. Finally he turned back, only to find Kira standing beneath the eaves of the barn, her arms wrapped tight around her chest as she waited just beyond the reach of the rain.  
  
“What are you doing out here?” he asked, immediately wincing at his own stupidity. He knew what she was doing out there.  
  
“I panicked,” she said to the ground.  
  
Damar smiled and said, “I didn’t know you _could_ panic.” He wasn’t the least bit shocked by the vicious glare she shot him in response, but he was pleasantly surprised when it softened into a smile. “Would you like your shawl?” he asked. He held up the ball of cloth in his hand; most of it was already wet, despite his efforts to keep it sheltered from the rain.  
  
“Thank you.” She held out her hand, which Damar took to mean she expected him to bring it to her. For her benefit only he made a show of being frustrated as he picked his way across the river of mud between them, which only seemed to amuse her. A flicker of anticipation curled its way up his spine as he neared her, and she made no attempt to put more distance between them. Damar held out the bundle of cloth in his hand and waited.  
  
She didn’t take it from him. Actually annoyed this time, he frowned. “Would you—”  
  
Deceptively strong hands suddenly grasped his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. Damar forgot his impatience, forgot the shawl in his hand as it tumbled to the ground, and forgot trying to convince himself that he had made a terrible miscalculation. As though no time had passed since the left the loft, he embraced her, and this time there was no surreal shock to overcome. She fought him for every second of the kiss, trying to take control just as she did with everything else, and Damar only fought briefly before he let go and allowed her to have what she wanted. When she pulled away he didn’t object; instead he mouthed a trail of kisses along her jaw and down the side of her neck, burying his face in her hair and breathing in deeply. She shivered slightly and drew him closer, and he made no effort to fight _that_ , either.  
  
“Come back to the station with me.”  
  
“I hardly think I’d be welcomed there,” he muttered against her neck with a wry smile. “And I am completely inept at sewing.”  
  
“No.” She leaned away to look at him. “Come back, and let everyone know you’re alive. You can return to Cardassia from there, and—”  
  
“Enough, Kira!” Damar stepped away with a scowl. It had the unfortunate result of putting him back in the rain, but he didn’t care anymore. What did it matter when he was already soaked through to the skin? “I told you I won’t go back. Did you think doing this would change my mind?”  
  
She seemed lost for only a moment. Just long enough for Damar to realize his mistake. “You think—you think this was all a plan to make you do what I wanted? You think I _seduced_ you?” She laughed at him, and the sound of it was like a door slamming shut between them. All the warmth and desire was gone from her eyes. Only cold anger remained. “I’ve always known Cardassians were arrogant, but _this_ …”  
  
“Kira, wait—”  
  
She shrugged off the hand he placed on her shoulder and walked away for the second time that day. Probably the last time ever, he realized as he watched her go.  
  
  
  
  
After watching Kira crest the hill and disappear down the road, Damar stormed off to the tool shed to find another stack of buckets, as his had no doubt been completely consumed by the rain and mud already. He wasn’t just disappointed in himself this time, he was furious with the entire situation. To satisfy his own temper he threw open the door, only to find Moren standing at the workbench, cleaning a set of old pruning shears. He had seen the old man use them many times to trim the alvas vines, which he insisted was part of keeping them healthy. Damar was no farmer himself, he had never so much as watered a garden before. He certainly didn’t understand how cutting off pieces of the plants would help maintain their health, and he had never asked. Nor did he ever intend to. He nodded curtly to the elderly farmer and started shifting around barrels and boxes, looking for more buckets.  
  
“That woman,” Moren said after some time had passed, “you know her?” He continued cleaning the shears, but seemed otherwise unconcerned with Damar’s presence.  
  
“From a long time ago,” Damar answered. “Why?” He almost didn’t care why Moren was curious about Kira. What did it matter? But there was something in the back of his mind, a nagging worry that wouldn’t let him ignore the way Moren had asked about her.  
  
The farmer was quiet. He reached for an oil cloth to wipe the blades. “A long time? A long time can mean a lot of things. What are you looking for?”  
  
Damar shoved a stack of crates under a shelf and pushed his hair back into place before realizing his fingers were covered in cobwebs and dust. The rain would wash it off, but he hated being dirty. Not that it mattered much, under the circumstances. “Buckets,” he said finally.  
  
“I gave you buckets this morning.”  
  
“They’re full,” Damar told him. “Of water, mostly.”  
  
Moren ignored that and continued his work. “I knew women like her. Strong women,” he said after a while. “Usually the ones who left to fight in the resistance, then die in the resistance. A few ended up in labor camps. Some caught the eye of the Cardassian officers… Lots of women like that, a _long time ago_.”  
  
The nagging worry in the back of Damar’s mind suddenly flared up into an actual concern; Moren was getting at something, and Damar didn’t like what it seemed like that might be. He turned around to face the farmer, who was still meticulously cleaning and oiling his tools. “Kira and I—”  
  
“There’s more buckets right under there, you know,” Moren interrupted.  
  
Damar looked down under his arms on either side. He had no idea what the old man meant by _under there_. “Where?” he asked.  
  
Moren sighed and abandoned his work to shuffle over and point at a supply chest under the nearest set of shelves. “There.”  
  
The one place Damar hadn’t looked, of course. He reached down to pull the latch on the chest, but his fingers never touched the metal. He was stopped by a force that felt suspiciously like being punched in the gut by a Jem’Hadar. The dull ache quickly gave way to a sharp, hot pain. Damar looked down at his stomach, where the handle end of Moren’s shears protruded from his tunic, which itself was rapidly turning the same shade as his blood. Then the rest of the pain caught up to the initial shock, and the agony was so overwhelming that Damar could only sink to his knees and gasp wordlessly.  
  
Dukat had once claimed to have been stabbed by a Klingon. He had said it felt cold, and insisted he had nevertheless fought through the discomfort before killing his enemy, which was probably as much of a lie as the rest of his self-aggrandizing tales. Damar didn’t feel cold; he felt hot and dizzy, and as he stared at his own knees and struggled to remain upright, everything around him seemed to dim and fade into a sickening blur. He was only vaguely aware of Moren’s hand on his shoulder. The old Bajoran leaned down and jerked the shears back out of the wound, leaving Damar to collapse in a spasm of agony so overwhelming he couldn’t even scream. The last thing he heard before light faded and he slipped into complete darkness was Moren, muttering to himself.  
  
“ _Damned Cardassians_.”


	3. Chapter 3

Since the war had ended and most of the looming concerns that plagued his life abruptly disappeared along with it, Julian frequently found himself with an abundance of free time he simply wasn't accustomed to anymore. He no longer bothered with weekly emergency preparedness drills for his staff, and daily intelligence reports were both pointless and outside the scope of his duties once again. Life was much more mundane, certainly, but the freedom of being out from under the threat of total annihilation certainly made it easier to enjoy that dull routine. He thought of Miles sometimes, off teaching a new generation of cunning engineers back on Earth; Garak too, undoubtedly doing something underhanded that he would later smile and deny having _any_ knowledge of, let alone ever considering. Things were quiet on the station for the first time ever, it seemed, and while the occasional targ-related emergency did come up now and then, for the most part it was… peaceful. He had almost forgotten what it was like to live his life relatively stress-free. He wondered if perhaps he should submit himself to a few tests, just to compare pre and post-war results in an effort to document the physiological changes a genetically enhanced individual might undergo while exposed to prolonged, high levels of stress, as compared to their non-modified counterparts. Of course, he would have to do the same with another subject who had never undergone enhancement—preferably human, to begin with. The thought of then repeating the test on several non-human staff members also crossed his mind, at which point the repetitive beeping of his console no longer registered as anything more than a mildly annoying addition to the normal background static of the station.  
  
A nurse’s voice cut through the melee of ideas and hypotheses and snapped Julian out of his scientific daydream like popping a bubble. Suddenly he was aware of the angry sound coming from the screen in front of him, and with a quick shake to bring himself back to reality, he reached out and accepted the transmission. An unfamiliar Bajoran face appeared on the screen; an older woman, who seemed both pleased that Julian had finally answered, and irritated that it had taken so long. Her tight but proper smile reminded him of the former Kai, oddly enough. He supposed feigning manners was something everyone had to master at some point when it could mean the difference between life in a labor camp and death.  
  
_“Good evening, am I speaking to Doctor Julian Bashir?”_  
  
“You are. How can I help you…?” He left room for her to fill in the blank and introduce herself, which she promptly did.  
  
_“I am Doctor Tastha Enar, head of the facilities here at the Redar Medical School in Kendra Province.”_  
  
Julian nodded at the appropriate intervals, but his focus had already started wandering back to planning his new personal research project. By the time he realized the doctor’s call wasn’t simply another work study placement request, she was already describing the problem.  
  
_“—hoping you could help with a patient whose unexpected turn for the worse is, frankly, beyond our ability to handle.”_  
  
The sudden shift in focus left Julian staring blankly at the screen. “Wh—well… how would you describe the patient’s condition, currently? Why were they hospitalized to begin with?”  
  
_“It might be simpler to send you the information so that you can look over it yourself. If you don’t mind.”_  
  
Julian nodded. “Of course, thank you.” She tapped something out of frame and just a few silent and only slightly awkward moments later the file was in front of him. Julian gave it a quick glance, noting that it was filled with an alarming list of tests and wildly unorthodox treatments that seemed to have nothing to do with—“A puncture wound?”  
  
_“Accidental, I’m told.”_  
  
“This is quite an extensive workup for someone who was only just admitted with what is a rather unexceptional injury,” Julian said. “And a Cardassian? Pardon me for asking, but how did he even end up on Bajor in the first place?”  
  
_“It’s part of a program intended to foster goodwill and cooperation between Bajor and Cardassia by helping to place indigent but otherwise fit Cardassian citizens with Bajorans who need assistance working their land or producing wares,”_ she said. The monotone regurgitation of something that had clearly been memorized by rote did little to satisfy Julian’s curiosity, but he didn’t press the issue further. Doctor Tastha continued, _“As for his injury, we weren’t told how it happened. Just that it was a workplace accident. No one asked for any details because we didn’t foresee this level of complication in his treatment.”_  
  
“Are your students able or allowed to treat Cardassians?” he asked. It seemed unlikely that they would have allowed untested students to work on a patient with differing biology, especially once his condition took a turn for the worse, but that at least might account for the man’s declining state.  
  
_“No. I have also limited the number of doctors on staff who have had access to the patient or a hand in his treatment.”_  
  
“And they are suitably experienced with Cardassian physiology?”  
  
_“Doctor, at the risk of making impolite assumptions about your knowledge regarding the Occupation, you should know that any Bajoran who has worked in the field of medicine for more than ten years has a better understanding of the Cardassian body than their own.”_  


* * *

  
  
  
“It was…” Kira tried to think of a way to adequately describe her encounter with Damar without actually _mentioning_ Damar, or telling Ezri what had happened, but nothing came to mind. “It was an interesting trip,” she said instead, and with what she hoped was enough finality to change the subject. There was simply no way to be honest without hinting at something more, and she wasn’t ready to tell anyone even the most benign details of her trip to Bajor, let alone who she had encountered there. With her luck, and knowing Ezri’s curiosity, a single offhand comment would only lead to more probing questions, and then she would wind up revealing everything about Damar, where he was, and what had almost happened between them. The problem was, she wasn’t sure which part of that bothered her most.  
  
“Sounds _interesting_ ,” Ezri teased. She grasped the rim of her mug with her fingertips and turned it slowly. “So… did you meet anyone?”  
  
“Alright, I think that’s enough about me,” Kira said. “How were things here? I haven’t seen Ensign Ross yet, is he back on duty?”  
  
“He’s taking a few days off. I think the incident with the targ rattled him a little bit more than he let on. We started to suspect something was wrong when he almost got sick after finding out the updated duty roster had him down for another cargo bay inspection.”  
  
“That bad?”  
  
Ezri nodded. “But with a few days of rest and weekly counseling sessions he should be fine, eventually. Although I did recommend that we permanently reassign him to Ops,” she said.  
  
“Are you sure it’s any safer for him in Ops? Or for us?”  
  
“Well, I think we’ll know pretty quickly either way.”  
  
Kira nodded. Maybe his latest brush with disaster would convince the ensign to request a transfer to someplace quieter. Somewhere safe, out of the way… A stray thought about Damar drifted through her mind suddenly, and Kira winced at herself. She was tired of thinking about him.  
  
“Too hot?” Ezri asked.  
  
It took Kira a moment to register that Ezri had said anything at all, she was so wrapped up in her self-inflicted tirade about Damar’s arrogance. He even had the gall to interrupt her personal time when he wasn’t anywhere nearby. “Hm?”  
  
Ezri pointed to Kira’s drink. “You seem a bit distracted, if you don’t mind me saying. Is something wrong?”  
  
“No. Well, yes. But it’s nothing.”  
  
“Alright. You should know that’s a pretty clear indication that something is really wrong, though. Would you like to talk about it?”  
  
Being psychoanalyzed in the replimat was not Kira’s idea of a positive start to her week. She shook her head, but Ezri persisted.  
  
“It’ll only get worse if you try to ignore it.”  
  
“I’ll take that risk,” Kira said. “And anyway, it’s really nothing.”  
  
Before Kira could come up with a suitable segue into a more pleasant topic, Ezri’s attention shifted to something outside on the Promenade. Kira followed her line of sight to find Julian picking his way through the crowd. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, and a large medical kit in his arms. “I wonder where he’s going,” she muttered to herself. Ezri was already up and moving, and after taking a final sip from her mug, Kira followed.  
  
“Is everything alright?” she asked when they finally caught up with the doctor.  
  
“Oh, yes,” Julian said. “Everything is fine.” He hoisted the strap of his bag a bit higher and smiled. “My assistance was requested at a medical school on Bajor. It’s quite urgent, apparently. I’ll only be gone for a day or two, I’m sure, and Doctor Belmira has assured me she’s quite comfortable handling things while I’m away. With your permission, of course.”  
  
“Of course,” Kira said. “Another lecture?” Since the war, Julian had become something of a hot ticket item for the medical lecture circuit, even earning himself an invitation to a conference on _Romulus_ , of all places, which he had politely declined for reasons he wasn’t willing to discuss.  
  
“Actually, it’s a patient of theirs,” Julian said. “A Cardassian, if you can believe it. Apparently there’s some sort of work placement program in effect that—well, it’s complicated, and even I’m not quite sure I understand it. The doctor I spoke with said they can’t seem to get a handle on what should be a very simple abdominal puncture wound. Unfortunately it seems the injury has gotten completely out of control in only a short time, and they’ve asked for my assistance. After seven years treating Garak for his various ailments, not to mention the two months I spent assisting with the relief efforts on Cardassia Prime, I suppose they think I’m something of an expert on the phys—”  
  
“Did they tell you the patient’s name?” Kira interrupted. She wasn’t worried about Julian’s disappointed frown, or the suspicious look from Ezri; her thoughts had shifted to Damar, and his penchant for getting himself into trouble. Realistically she knew it was ridiculous to assume that he just happened to be the Cardassian patient Julian was running off to treat, but she couldn't shake the concern regardless of how little sense it made. That itself infuriated her, and she wanted nothing more than to bury those feelings down below her very justified anger, but they persisted. The worry felt like a lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow. “Anything at all?”  
  
“His name was in the file Doctor Tastha sent me,” Julian said slowly, “but I don’t recall it offhand. May I ask why?”  
  
If it _had_ been Damar, Julian would have said something right away. Of course, Damar wouldn’t have told anyone on Bajor who he really was, either; despite all evidence to the contrary, he was at least smart enough to know better than that. If only she had pushed Moren a little harder about his strange farmhand, it might have been easier to ignore the gnawing worry that was slowly growing in the back of her mind. She tried to talk herself out of it; there had to be thousands of Cardassian refugee workers on Bajor. Any one of them could have been injured in the short time since she had last seen Damar. There was no reason to think it was him. And anyway, hadn't she washed her hands of him?

Could she?  
  
While Ezri and Julian discussed his lack of communication, Kira questioned her feelings about a man she genuinely wanted to hate, and just why it was she couldn't stop thinking about him. It felt like a betrayal of her own convictions to care what happened to him now, after he had all but accused her of manipulating him—after everything _else_ he had done. And yet… Arrogant, stupid, and incredibly stubborn as he was, she didn’t want to see him suffer. Of that much she was certain. Maybe a very minor, very _painful_ injury, but nothing like what Julian was describing. “When are you leaving?” she asked during a break in the conversation.  
  
“Right now, actually. Would you like me to keep you updated on the situation, Colonel?” the doctor asked. He was practically dancing on his heels.  
  
“No, it’s fine. I’m sure you’ll want to get going. Good luck, Doctor.”  
  
Julian took a few steps back, waved goodbye to Ezri, and then promptly disappeared into the Promenade crowd. Once he was gone, Ezri fixed Kira with a very meaningful frown that spoke of numerous uncomfortable questions to come. “Why do I get the feeling that _something_ you don’t want to talk about isn’t as much of a _nothing_ as you’d like it to be?” she asked.  
  
“Trust me,” Kira said, “it’s more than you want to know.”  


* * *

  
  
  
Tastha was waiting for Julian at the local transport hub, and she quickly ushered him out of the building, along a wide avenue that he assumed would take them to the school. They marched through a torrential downpour that had obviously been going for some time; the tug of rushing water swept around his ankles in some places and threatened to pull him off his feet if he made a single ill-placed step. It wasn’t until they reached higher ground and started to climb the steps to the school that he finally felt secure enough to walk without watching his own legs. His escort seemed intent on ignoring the weather, and wasted no time with formalities. “The patient’s condition has worsened since we spoke,” she shouted to him over a crack of thunder. “I am concerned this may turn into a post-mortem examination, rather than a consultation. At this rate I doubt he’ll survive the night.”  
  
“And you’re sure it was just a puncture wound?” Julian asked. He tucked his medkit under one arm and held his bag over his head. It made a poor umbrella. “There was nothing abnormal in your diagnosis that would suggest something else may be the cause? What about his Bajoran hosts? Have they provided any further information?”  
  
He could see Tastha’s frown deepen, but she humored him and answered his questions despite her clear disapproval. “His host is the one who brought him to us, and he explained the nature of the injury in greater detail after we realized something else was wrong. At first we had no difficulty with the treatment; the wound was cleaned and microsutures applied, and appropriate steps were taken to prevent infection. He was responding well. It was a few hours after that, when one of the other doctors was taking his students through the recovery ward, that we discovered the Cardassian had taken a turn for the worse. From that point on it became a constant struggle just to keep him stable.” She hesitated briefly, eyeing Julian as though she wasn’t sure she could trust him, but finally she pitched her voice a bit lower and said, “If I didn’t know better, and I hadn’t seen the object that injured him with my own eyes, I’d have thought he had been poisoned.”  
  
Julian nearly missed a step. “ _Poisoned?_ Is that your personal assessment of his symptoms?”  
  
“I would never suggest it to my colleagues, but… yes, it is. However, I had the farmer’s shears tested for residual chemical and biological compounds, and there was no trace of anything that could account for the symptoms we’ve been treating. That is why I asked you to come here.”  
  
While he hardly considered himself an expert on poisons, Julian did have a great deal of experience with the clandestine methods of elimination preferred by certain Cardassians—thanks in no small part to his association with one of those certain Cardassians. He hesitated to jump to the same conclusions without first seeing the patient for himself, but if Doctor Tastha was right, and it was some sort of poison the Bajoran doctors couldn’t identify, then there might be someone who wouldn’t want to see this Cardassian patient healed. Of course, that also begged the question _why_. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve forgotten the patient’s name. What was it again?”  
  
“Serot,” Tastha said. Then she scoffed and threw her hand back with a dismissive flick. “Though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that many of the Cardassian laborers on Bajor are using false identities for one reason or another, despite our best efforts to accurately identify and track them all. I wouldn’t put much stock in the name on his file.”  
  
Most of the more notable and controversial public figures on Cardassia had been eliminated long before the Dominion surrendered to the Federation. Julian could hardly imagine anyone important enough to have earned such an aggressive and complex assassination, who also could have slipped by countless other Cardassians and Bajorans that would have undoubtedly recognized him. There were personal grudges remaining even among the survivors, surely, but in the face of civil unrest and a crippled government wholly unequipped to help itself or the citizens in its care, it seemed unlikely anyone would bother with settling a personal vendetta when Cardassian society was on the verge of collapse every other day. Then again, if anyone could put spite before the good of the people, it would probably be Cardassians.  
  
“No, I suppose I can’t,” Julian said. “I would like to see him as soon as possible, if you don't mind.”  
  
“Of course.” Tastha gestured to a large building up the rightmost path before them. It was, like many large structures on Bajor, round, and capped with a single domed roof. Symbols evoking the blessings of the Prophets adorned the top of every doorway, window, and several small pillars around the outer grounds. There were few doctors or students to be found outside, likely due to the rainfall that flooded every path and stairway, regardless of elevation. Still, it wasn’t his worst trip to Bajor. “This is the tertiary surgical ward, which also holds the recovery wing, two operating theaters, and several small classrooms,” Tastha informed him. “There is an underground tunnel connecting this ward to the main building and adjoining surgical departments, but at the moment it is filled with water. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.”  
  
Julian shook his head. “Could I also see a list of all the staff here at the school who have had access to the patient? Just so I can get some idea of the timeline of his treatment,” he added quickly when Tastha shot him a suspicious glance.  
  
“I will take you to Serot, and then I’ll have an intern fetch you the names you need. We have quarters prepared for you in one of the student dormitories. It’s just a short walk from here, but the awning over the walkway will do little to keep you dry, so don’t bother changing. He’s right through here,” she said as she opened one half of a set of double doors. “We moved the rest of the patients out of this wing yesterday.”  
  
“Are you concerned he may have some sort of infection that could be spread to the others?”  
  
Tastha turned a flat stare on him and sighed. “Surely I don’t have to tell you why I might have limited access to this room?”  
  
“Oh, right,” Julian said sheepishly. He felt silly admitting it even to himself, but it was exciting being back in the thick of things. Trying to solve what might turn out to be an attempted assassination, racing against the clock to find the cure and save the patient’s life; as strange as it might have seemed to anyone else, he did miss it a bit.  
  
They came around to the end of the wing where the patient was lying, and Julian’s eyes fell on the dark blood seeping through the bandages that covered his wound. “How recently were his dressings changed, and who was responsible for…” He stopped both mid-stride and mid-sentence. “ _It can’t be,_ ” he muttered to himself, approaching the bed slowly as he stared at the Cardassian’s face in disbelief. The man lying before him was _Damar_ —or he appeared to be, anyway. He seemed gaunt, diminished in ways that suggested he had been living a harder life than the former leader of the Cardassian Union might be accustomed to, but all the key identifying characteristics were otherwise the same; cranial ridge patterns, which anyone else might ignore or assume had no value in confirming identity, were identical to those that Julian could recall with his much more meticulous memory. Likewise, there were no detectable indications of cosmetic alterations intended to make this man resemble Damar, and Julian couldn’t think of a single rational reason why anyone would do such a thing, anyway. Perhaps he shared an uncanny and unfortunate resemblance to the martyred Cardassian leader, or perhaps he really _was_ Damar. What bothered Julian the most was that Colonel Kira and Garak had both reported that Damar had died in the final assault on the Dominion headquarters. His own people saw him shot down by the Jem’Hadar.  
  
Tastha leaned forward and craned her neck to look up at Julian. “Doctor Bashir?”  
  
“I’m—I’m sorry, Doctor Tastha. Could I make two requests before we continue?”  
  
Nodding, Tastha said, “I will do my best. What do you need?”  
  
“First, I’d like access to a terminal that I can use to send a secure message to Starfleet Command. Then I would like you to contact the local Bajoran Militia, and have them post someone outside every entrance to this room.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Kira woke from a nap she hadn’t realized she was taking, startled into uncomfortable awareness of her surroundings by the voice of someone calling for her through the comm. “Yes?” she managed past a dry mouth and a tongue that felt like sand.  
  
_“Colonel Kira, you’re receiving a priority-one transmission from Starfleet Command. It’s Admiral Ross.”_ The detached voice of whatever ensign manned communications in Ops clipped off abruptly, waiting for her response.  
  
“Put him through,” she said.  
  
_“Right away.”_

She hadn’t changed before stretching out on the couch, thankfully, so there was no need to worry about her state of dress when the admiral’s face appeared on the screen behind her desk. _“Colonel,”_ he greeted somberly.  
  
“Admiral. What can I do for you?” It wasn’t very late, but late enough to make her suspicious. On top of the priority status, he seemed unusually agitated. “If this is about your nephew,” she said, “he’s fine. The targ was tested, and shows no signs of any infectious diseases. As far as I am aware.”  
  
_“Thank you, Colonel, but no,”_ Ross assured her. _“I’m sure my nephew is doing just fine_.” He took a deep breath and frowned at his own hands, which he'd folded atop the desk. It was the kind of frown that Kira had grown accustomed to seeing from him during the war. One that preceded news she probably wouldn’t want to hear. _“I spoke with Doctor Bashir just a few minutes ago, and what he told me was troubling, to say the least. It raised some questions that need answering.”_  
  
Kira’s heart felt like it had crawled into her throat. She forced herself to listen; out of duty, maybe out of a morbid need to know her silly concerns had been right all along. She already knew what he was going to say, it made too much sense.  
  
_“Colonel,”_  the admiral continued, _“I need to know exactly what happened to Damar the day you took Dominion headquarters on Cardassia Prime. You and Garak both claimed that he was shot dead by the Jem’Hadar, but according to Doctor Bashir, he’s alive and on Bajor. Right now.”_ Waiting for a response, he stared Kira down like he truly believed she had lied to him, to Starfleet, perhaps even to Captain Sisko. She would have been outraged if her mind hadn’t been engulfed in a hurricane of conflicted feelings over the revelation that Damar really  _was_ the gravely injured Cardassian that Julian had gone to treat. That the concerns she had convinced herself were silly and irrational had been right all along. How did he manage it? How did a man who couldn’t seem to die court the effort with such uncanny determination? She was instantly furious with him for being an idiot, because whatever had happened was undoubtedly his own damn fault. If he had just come back to the station with her like she asked, none of this—whatever _this_ was—would have happened. He would be fine, and there wouldn’t have been any need to call Julian for help with the sort of simple injury Kira had seen treated countless times with no complications. _What the hell could have happened?_ As she imagined a series of increasingly unlikely scenarios, in the back of her mind a voice reminded her that she didn’t care about Damar.  
  
Another calculated how soon she could be on Bajor if she took a runabout.  
  
_“Colonel?”_  
  
She had almost forgotten Admiral Ross was still waiting for an answer. “I understand your concerns, Admiral,” she said, doing her best to sound both mildly offended and placating. “But I assure you, my report was submitted with every intention of providing a thorough account of what happened that day. At the time I—and I’m sure Garak as well—believed that Damar had been killed in combat. I saw it with my own eyes.”  
  
_“You don’t seem surprised to hear that Damar may be alive, though,”_ Ross continued undeterred. _“Tell me, Colonel, did you have knowledge of this prior to now?”_  
  
There was no way to answer him honestly; no matter how much respect she had for the Federation or the admiral himself, she could not stand before him and admit she was not only aware that Damar was still alive, but that she had been in direct contact with him when he was assumed dead by the rest of the quadrant. The nature of their contact notwithstanding, it would constitute a betrayal of the trust Ross had placed in her when he insisted that she retain command of the station in Sisko’s absence. He believed she was more qualified than anyone Starfleet could send to replace the captain, and that meant something to her. “I heard rumors,” she lied instead. “Damar was a powerful public figure during the war, so it didn’t surprise me. But at the time I didn’t think any of it was credible, or worth mentioning.”  
  
The tight hitch of Ross’ shoulders relaxed a bit, and he nodded, clearly satisfied with her excuse. _“I suspect there have been quite a few rumors since the end of the war,”_ he said. _“I’m sure I wouldn’t have found most of them credible myself. Thank you for your honesty. Now that we have that unpleasant business out of the way, it’s time to focus on the bigger picture; we need to take advantage of this situation, Colonel. Assuming Damar survives, that is.”_  
  
“How bad is it?” she asked.  
  
_“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this stays between us, but from what Doctor Bashir has told me, it seems Damar may have been poisoned.”_  
  
“ _Poisoned?_ With what?” And how could anyone have known where he was to attempt an assassination in the first place? Or was it completely random? No, that made even less sense, and she refused to believe his luck was _that_ bad.  
  
_“If I could tell you that, we wouldn’t be facing half the problems we are right now. Doctor Bashir will provide you with more information when you get there.”_ Before Kira could ask what he meant by that, Ross added, _“You and the_ Defiant _are headed to Bajor, Colonel. We’re not taking any chances on this one. If it is Damar, and not just some clever look-alike, then we can’t afford to let him slip through our fingers. Word of this gets out, and everyone with a passing interest in him is going to come crawling out of the woodwork. We need_ you _to see to it that he remains secure. You have your orders, Colonel,”_ h _e_ concluded with a nod. _"Good luck.”_

 

* * *

  
  
Julian pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. He had spent most of the evening staring at screens, each brimming with data and test results and analyses that amounted to absolutely nothing. He was disappointed to learn that Tastha had been correct in suspecting poison, though what it was and just how it had been administered still remained a mystery. They had at least managed to stabilize Damar’s vital signs, but he was still dying, and unless someone came strolling through the doors of the hospital with the cure that very moment, it was looking increasingly unlikely that Julian would find a way to save him. Several times over the course of the evening Doctor Tastha had come bustling into the room and cautioned him to get some rest, worried that Julian would work himself to exhaustion if he didn’t mind his own health while he tried to salvage Damar’s, but he had politely refused her advice. He was so close to an answer, but it stubbornly remained just beyond his reach. There was something infuriatingly simple about the way Damar was reacting to whatever had been used to poison him, only nothing showed up on the numerous scans Julian had conducted, and there were no abnormal factors in the samples both he and Tastha had analyzed more times than either could count. If he could only isolate what had been used to formulate the poison before it was delivered into Damar’s system, if he knew what the basic composition of the damned thing _was_ , then he might have enough time to synthesize a counteractive agent and save Damar’s life. Treating the symptoms as they were now was ultimately meaningless with the poison still killing him from the inside. And doing even that much was proving increasingly difficult with each passing hour.  
  
Damar stirred across the room, and Julian glanced at him just to make sure it wasn’t something worse than a bit of restless discomfort. He had been mercifully unconscious for most of the day, with brief moments of lucidity that were unenviable, to put it mildly. The first and only attempt at conversation had been wholly unsuccessful, and Julian was almost certain Damar had actually sighed when he saw who was standing over his bedside.  
  
“Any luck?” came the voice of Tastha from the doorway. She shuffled into the room and over to where Julian was sitting in the same brusque manner that seemed to make up every part of her personality, apart from her surprisingly gentle touch with patients. She held a cup in each hand, and set one down on the table to Julian’s left. Tendrils of steam curled above the lip of the cup, and the heady aroma of deka tea quickly filled the air space around them. “I do hope you’ve made some progress,” she said. “Because I certainly haven’t.”  
  
“Nothing,” Julian admitted with an angry sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut just long enough to undo some of the strain of staring at screens all night. “There is nothing physically wrong with him that I can tell, yet he’s clearly suffering from… from _something_. His body is trying to shut down, and his vital signs are weakening by the hour. There has to be a cause, the body doesn’t just poison itself! The answer is _right there_ ,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Right in front of me, yet I can’t put my finger on it.”  
  
“Perhaps a fresh start in the morning will give you the perspective you need to figure it out. I know I could certainly use some sleep.”  
  
Julian dismissed the suggestion much like all the others, though for the first time since his arrival he could actually feel the tug of fatigue pulling at the edges of his concentration. It seemed so long ago that he had worked himself to exhaustion trying to find a cure for the disease that threatened Odo and his people. Julian idly wondered what had ever made him believe that he could decipher a riddle that the Founders themselves had set every Vorta scientist in the Dominion to solving. “What I wouldn’t give for a thousand Dominion scientists now,” he muttered under his breath. If they could engineer a compound like Ketracel-white, then—  
  
Just like that, the answer came to him. It was so obvious, why hadn’t he seen it before?  
  
“Ketracel-white!” he exclaimed to a startled Doctor Tastha. “Of course!”  
  
Tastha frowned at him. “Pardon?”  
  
“I know where I’ve seen this before! Four years ago, in the Gamma Quadrant. There was a group of rogue Jem’Hadar—their leader was somehow able to survive without requiring a regular dose of Ketracel-white. He wanted me to free his men of their addiction as well.” Julian tore through the mountain of results he’d been staring at for the last fourteen hours until he found what he was looking for; a particular enzyme that he had overlooked during his analysis of the tissue and blood samples taken from Damar. “While I was in the process of trying to discover just how he had come by this unique trait, I was simultaneously developing what I had hoped would be a cure for the white addiction in his men, and perhaps the other Jem’Hadar. I tried a number of different compounds and therapies that showed some promise, though all were ultimately unsuccessful. This,” he said, pointing to the screen, “was one of those attempts. My thought was that if I couldn’t stop the physical need for the missing enzyme supplied by the white, then perhaps I could make use of an inhibitor to lengthen the effectiveness of a single dose. Potentially extending the time between supplements indefinitely, with enough fine-tuning.  
  
“An unintended—and I had previously believed harmless—result of this work was a protein byproduct of that enzyme inhibitor; harmless to the Jem'Hadar leader and his men, of course, which is why I overlooked it when I analyzed the sample of, ah… _Serot’s_ tissue. It didn’t occur to me that I should pay closer attention to something I initially disregarded as benign. Of course, looking at it now, I understand that it couldn’t possibly have performed as the rogue Jem’Hadar required, but it seems we know exactly what it does to an organism whose metabolic processes are not dependant on Ketracel-white: It becomes a poison.”  
  
He moved aside so Tastha could take a closer look at the screen. She seemed as suspicious of the data as she was of nearly everything else. “And you developed this yourself?” she asked.  
  
“Yes,” Julian said with a nod. “Although I never shared my findings with anyone, in part because the original work I conducted with the Jem’Hadar was destroyed before Chief O’Brien and I managed to escape.” He neglected to mention just who had destroyed it, though he imagined Tastha wouldn’t have cared, anyway. “But I did continue my research once I was back at the station, in my spare time. It never amounted to much, but I made a point to record my findings in a secure log. I have to wonder…”  
  
“Wonder what?”  
  
Julian sat back again. He stared at the screen with a deepening frown. “Who accessed my research without my knowledge, and then took that information and turned it into a weapon, all to kill one man.”


	4. Chapter 4

In total they beamed down fourteen Starfleet personnel to replace the Bajoran Militia officers who had been standing an unbroken watch outside the hospital wing; six crates of medical supplies that had been added to the _Defiant’s_ cargo manifest per Doctor Bashir’s request; a host of security equipment meant to supplement what little the local Militia unit had been able to spare; and Kira. Once on the surface, she immediately set to work ensuring that all of the hospital’s access points were accounted for and covered, and that the supplies were placed in an adjacent wing to the one in which Bashir and his colleague were working. The entire process took less than four hours. It might have been a perfectly staged covert operation, had every student, patient, and faculty member on the campus not already known about it. The rain had forced most of them to remain indoors, but the _Defiant_  was monitoring local communications from orbit, and Nog had already reported a significant increase in outgoing traffic since their arrival. It wouldn’t be long before someone outside of the closed circle involved in Damar’s treatment put the pieces together and figured out that there was someone very important being treated in that hospital.

Once everyone was in place, Kira found herself unable to hide behind the distraction of delegation and micro-management to allay the anxiety that was crawling its way up from the pit of her stomach. After wandering aimlessly for a short time, she found herself before the doors to the recovery wing, flanked by two Starfleet officers with phaser rifles slung over their shoulders. They exchanged looks as she repeatedly reached for the access panel, only to pull her hand away.

She couldn’t go in there. Not yet.

“Colonel?” one of the men ventured carefully.

Kira straightened up. “No one else comes through these doors,” she said brusquely. She accepted the prompt acknowledgment from both officers with a nod of her own, and then quickly turned on her heel and marched in the opposite direction. It wasn’t the direction of the school director’s office, nor the staging area for the security team. In fact, she had no idea where she was going at first. It wasn't until she came upon a placard with a list of all the resources and destinations to be found in that building and those directly adjoining that she understood where her journey was taking her. According to the list, there was a nearby hallway that would eventually lead her to a small shrine. She had no desire to pray, and she would have felt ridiculous doing it for Damar’s sake, anyway, but it felt like the right place to be at that moment.

It occurred to her, as she walked the empty halls of the hospital, that she could never escape Cardassians. Good or bad, intentionally or otherwise, they were constantly wandering into her life and becoming a part of the confusing tangle that seemed to form her existence, and despite her best efforts she couldn’t seem to avoid it. She had somehow ended up fighting to free them from the Dominion; been defended by Garak and saved by Damar when Rusot raised his weapon against her; befriended and cared for the half-Bajoran daughter of her enemy; and now she was wrapped up in whatever mess had befallen Damar (again), who himself was supposed to be dead. No matter how hard she tried to distance herself from the people she wanted to think of as her enemies, fate simply wouldn’t allow it. It might have been funny, if it hadn’t repeatedly led to such tragedy.

She spied the familiar curved arch of the temple entrance before she noticed the old man sitting across from it. He was hunched over on a bench, slowly wringing his hands and muttering what she at first took to be prayers. As she drew closer Kira realized the man was Moren Kael. Her first instinct was to ask him how he had avoided being removed from the building along with the others, but then she noticed the dried blood on his clothes. Damar's blood—on his tunic, and smeared across his pants.

“Moren?”

He started and turned, and it took a moment for the dazed look in his eyes to fade. He focused on Kira and tried to smile, but it was a halfhearted effort that he quickly abandoned. “ _Ah_ ,” he said quietly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “They cleared the building.”

“I thought they were going to tell me to leave, too,” Moren said. “After the first night I thought maybe they'd forgotten me. Now I think they let me stay because I’m the one who brought him. It’s funny.”

“Funny?”

Moren gestured to the wide patch of stained cloth on the front of his tunic. “I’m the one who did this, after all.”

It took a moment for the confession to register, and even when it did Kira still found it difficult to believe. Hadn’t it been an accident? “Moren, what happened?” she asked.

He started wringing his hands again; pausing each time he took a breath as though he intended to speak, but couldn’t quite figure out where to begin. Finally he said, “I don’t want to tell you about myself.”

“You don’t have to, but—”

“I mean I don’t want to talk about _why_ ,” he said. “But I thought…” He paused to shake his head, and then said, “I thought, _not again_. Do you understand? It happened so many times during the Occupation. So many good people. Innocent people, who had done nothing wrong and just wanted to live their lives. And the damned Cardassians! Even now, even with their own world about to fall apart, they still take whatever they want from us, no matter who it hurts!”

A rough idea of what must have happened started to form in Kira’s mind; Damar, probably furious after Kira had stormed off, returning to his work in a foul mood; Moren, who might have seen everything from the moment Kira entered the barn to the moment she left; a lifetime of watching the Cardassians abuse Bajorans in every twisted way they could devise; and one old man who had seen enough. He had attacked Damar because he thought Kira was in danger, or being forced into something she didn’t want. “Moren, it wasn’t like that,” she tried to assure him, but he wasn’t finished.

“I never liked him, you know. They brought him to me and said he would help me with my crops, but most of the time he just got in the way. And I was expected to feed him, too. I spent most of my life having food taken from my mouth to feed Cardassians, and here I was, expected to do it again!" He huffed a bitter laugh and took a deep breath before continuing. "But I agreed. I agreed because they made a good case, and I like to think I’ve always been a sensible man. We’re taught to be forgiving. But I just couldn’t—” He stopped and looked up at Kira. His eyes were plaintive, almost desperate as he searched for some sort of absolution for what he’d done. Or maybe it was condemnation. “I was wrong, wasn’t I? He’s a good person?”

The wall across from the temple was lined with benches identical to the one Moren was using, but Kira chose to sit next to him. With her back to the high windows that lined the hall, she could hear the heavy rain outside, still pounding away at the saturated earth. For some reason it didn’t bother her as much as it had back at Kasidy’s. “No,” she said after a long silence. “He isn’t.” Moren sputtered some attempt at an objection, but she continued over him. “He’s done terrible things, and caused good people to suffer. I hated him for a very long time. I still want to hate him, and I’m not sure that I don’t.”

“ _Why?_ ” Moren whispered. And Kira knew he was asking why she had come; why she had returned to the farm, and why she was there in the hospital.

“Because he knows it better than anyone else.”

Even if it didn’t satisfy Moren’s question as thoroughly as he might have liked, for the moment her answer seemed to be enough for the elderly farmer. He sat back against the wall and tilted his head up, closing his eyes, apparently content to let the silence serve as his reply. It didn’t offend Kira; she couldn’t quite understand it herself.

Nothing Damar did would ever bring back Ziyal, or change the things he had done as Dukat’s right hand; no Cardassian could ever hope to make up for the horrors of the Occupation. There were wrongs that would outlast any good done in their name. Damar knew it, and what’s more _he acknowledged it_. And Kira understood how ridiculous it was to appreciate someone like Damar just for being able to say he was wrong, but somehow, for reasons beyond her ability to understand, it meant something to her. He knew, just as he had known when they were on the runabout. He broke through that conditioned superiority that seemed to render Cardassians incapable of acknowledging that they had actually been _wrong_ , and even if that wasn’t enough to make up for the things he had done, it was still progress. That was what Damar represented, and it was why she couldn’t bring herself to really hate him. Damar was the start of a change that needed to happen; for the Cardassians, for the Bajorans, for everyone who had been touched by the tragedies of the past sixty years. Even Moren Kael, whose pain was so great he couldn’t bring himself to speak of it.

“Can I ask,” Kira started slowly, trying to think of the right way to pose her question. “Why _did_ you bring him here? Why did you try to save his life?” If Moren had thought Damar was forcing himself on Kira, why had he made any effort at all? From the blood stains on his clothing, it was obvious he had either tried to carry Damar or made an attempt to stop the bleeding himself. What remorse could he have felt for a man he hated enough to kill only moments before?

Moren shook his head and shrugged, spreading his weathered palms in mock-supplication toward the temple. “It was the right thing to do,” he said, sounding resigned to some fate he couldn’t control. “Because it was right,” he repeated with more sincerity.

Hearing that, Kira wondered if Moren knew that he had more in common with Damar than he realized.

“What do you suppose they’ll do to me?” he asked after some time. “I tried to kill a man, after all.”

There was no answer that she could give him. Nothing she said would ease his fears. The political ramifications of Moren’s recklessness could be devastating, especially if anyone outside of the rapidly widening circle of those who knew Damar’s identity discovered that he was the victim. Already more people knew than Kira considered safe, and someone else was bound to recognize him while he was recovering. After all, they couldn’t keep an entire hospital closed just for one man, and she was certain Bashir would insist that it was too great a risk to transport Damar while he was still injured. That wasn’t the only problem, either; even if they managed to keep Damar a secret from the rest of the Alpha Quadrant like he wished, there was still the matter of his would-be assassin, whoever that was. Kira’s first guess had been Garak, but she had a feeling if Garak wanted Damar dead, he would have seen to it long before there was a chance anyone could stumble across him on Bajor.

“I don’t know,” she answered finally. “What do you think they should do?”

Moren appeared to give the matter some thought, but eventually he nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, I suppose I’m not going home as soon as I thought.”

 

* * *

 

 

 _He could smell the heat in the air, wonderfully thick and laced with the tang of metal and industrial ash. Mingled with those odors was the unmistakable stench of the Jem’Hadar shock troops and their blood-stained armor; Cardassian blood that had been beaten from his people for the slightest infractions. It tainted the familiarity of his home, but it wasn’t the only thing that seemed out of place. Over everything else wafted the delicate scent of the Bajoran woman beside him, hidden under a dark cloak and standing fearlessly at the mouth of the alley. She smelled cleaner than anyone who lived in a cellar had any right to. It bothered him, only he couldn’t quite understand_ why _._

Damar’s next thought was drowned in a wave of pain so intense that he forgot to breathe. Gasping for air, he sat up—or tried to, only to discover his body seemed to weigh far more than he expected. His arms were dead weight at his sides, and every muscle objected to the strain placed on them when he tensed his back in expectation of rising from the bed. Some horrible, broken sound startled him back into stillness, until he realized it was his own voice.

“Doctor Bashir!” a woman shouted. Damar tried to turn and look, panicked at the thought of another familiar face appearing to interrupt his self-imposed exile, but the task was more than he could manage.

“Something for the pain,” the woman said as she pressed the nozzle of a hypospray to Damar’s neck. The relief was instant, and appreciated more than the pathetic grunts and groans he could manage at the moment were capable of expressing.

It wasn’t long before Damar was able to remember why he hurt so badly. He recalled Moren’s attack, the way it had felt, and how his treacherous body had collapsed under the pain as the whole world disappeared around him. At the time he had believed he was dying; now he knew better. It seemed strange to experience that twice in one lifetime.

When he finally summoned the strength to open his eyes, Damar found himself lying in the middle of a Bajoran hospital room, flanked by an elderly Bajoran woman and, of course, Doctor Bashir. They peered at him as though he were some specimen they had grown in a laboratory. The unwanted attention irritated him, and made his drive to sit up all the more pressing. Unfortunately, before he had a chance to try, the woman placed a hand on his shoulder and easily put a stop to his efforts. Damar knew that Bajorans simply were not _that_ strong, which meant that _he_ was just exceptionally weak. Not the least bit surprising, given what had happened, but understanding that certainly didn’t make him feel any better.

“How are you feeling?” Bashir asked. Damar resisted the urge to sigh, and instead only glared up at the doctor. “Right.” Bashir looked at the Bajoran woman to Damar’s left and said, “I’ll inform Colonel Kira of the change in his status.”

“ _Kira?_ ” Damar rasped past a throat that felt like it had been used to grind ore. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might be involved. _Why_ , he couldn’t say, given Bashir’s presence. A foolish part of him had briefly hoped that the starfleet doctor’s involvement was purely coincidental, but perhaps Damar was asking too much of whatever strange powers amused themselves with his existence. " _Where?_ "

Instead of answering, Bashir tapped the pin on his chest and said, “Bashir to Kira.”

 _“Go ahead,”_ Kira replied through the comm. Something in Damar’s chest lurched uncomfortably at the sound of her voice.

“I thought you would like to know that the patient is awake. He seems to be responding well to the treatment.”

The comm was silent for a moment, and then Kira said, _“Understood,”_ and nothing more. Even Bashir appeared to be waiting for something more substantial, but when nothing came, he quickly masked his confusion with another inane smile aimed in Damar’s direction.

“Well, let’s get you patched up, shall we?” he said.

Damar peered curiously at the doctor, and then followed the human's gaze down to the bandage covering his abdomen. It was only then that he realized his pain had come not from a healing suture or a scar, but from the injury itself. It had never been closed. He began to panic, suddenly aware of discomfort he hadn’t noticed before, and yet again his shoulder was pushed back against the bed by the too-strong hand of the Bajoran doctor. “It’s alright,” she said as soothingly as he imagined she was able. “Now that the poison is out of your system, we can close the wound and treat the rest of your symptoms.”

But the panic already had a firm grip on his senses; Damar reeled, looking wildly around the room, from the Bajoran to Bashir—everywhere but at the open hole in his stomach that he swore could _feel_ even though he couldn’t presently feel much of anything. A voice in the back of his mind told him to focus on what she had said, something about poison. “P—poison?” he sputtered. “What poison?”

Someone had poisoned him? His first thought was Moren, given that the man had _stabbed him_ , but that seemed less likely than the possibility of having been poisoned to begin with. Had someone from Cardassia tried to kill him? No, that simply wasn’t possible. Not a single soul on Bajor or any other world knew where he was, or _who_ he was. What sort of assassin would waste their efforts on a man with no name and no past? Kira was the only one who knew the truth of his identity, and he trusted that she would never reveal it to anyone, no matter how much she hated him; he was much more valuable to her if he was alive. With the knowledge that more than Moren’s shears had been responsible for his current state, it suddenly became apparent why Bashir had been involved in his treatment, but that couldn’t have had anything to do with it.

Who, then?

“I’ll apply an anesthetic and then begin the procedure. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” Bashir assured him.

There were too many questions, and Damar barely had a voice to ask even one. What had been used to poison him? Why hadn’t they closed the wound? Who had involved Bashir, and did he know who he was treating beforehand? The overwhelming confusion sapped what little strength he had managed to gather since waking, and the room around him began to spin. For the first time in his life the air actually felt too _warm_. He tried to speak, and the few words he managed sounded like nonsense even to his own ears. Bashir and the other doctor urged him to calm down, to lie back and let them help, but he didn’t want help. He wanted answers.

 

  
Days passed, and Damar had little else to do but think and stare at the rain outside as it obscured the view beneath endless sheets of gray. Bashir had tried several times to engage him in conversation, most of which Damar politely declined by refusing to look at or speak to the human, until his resolve was eventually eroded by Bashir’s complete inability to perceive personal boundaries. The Bajoran doctor, whom Damar had learned was named Tastha, never bothered with pleasantries, but she did repeatedly force solid foods on him, all of which he found vile and tasteless. Bajoran food had never been his favorite, but it was as if she had somehow devised a method of making it even less palatable, just for his sake. He never sensed that she hated him for being Cardassian; on the contrary, she just seemed naturally unpleasant to everyone, even Bashir.

On the fifth day, after Damar had “politely” turned down the offer for a game of chess, Bashir began asking him questions. The topics ranged from his thoughts on individual incidents and battles that occurred during the war, to his knowledge of the events that led up to the Cardassian alliance with the Dominion. He somehow avoided mentioning anything to do with Kira, which Damar couldn’t help but notice. Was that on her orders, he wondered, or was Bashir aware of their recent encounter? Either way, it was both infuriating and fortunate that the doctor chose to leave the colonel out of the friendly interrogation, because each day that passed without so much as a word from her only incensed Damar that much more. She had a right to be angry, and even he could admit that his last outburst had been a bit uncalled for. But holding a grudge even after he had nearly died for a second time? He had hoped that perhaps after what they shared together, brief though it had been, she might afford him a bit more understanding. Apparently he didn’t know Kira as well as he had believed.

“Do you remember anything that occurred after you were injured, before you woke up in the Federation facility?” Bashir asked.

Kira knew he would expect her to come. That was probably why she refused. How petty and spiteful could the woman be? “No,” he snapped. A brief moment of regret followed, but he soundly ignored it.

Bashir didn't seem to notice. “It’s a wonder no one recognized you,” he muttered. “Although, I suppose in the chaos of a battlefield infirmary, it’s slightly less surprising.”

Damar made no attempt to hide his distaste for the doctor's choice of words. “That _battlefield_ was my home," he said. "Once peaceful streets that the Dominion razed because the Founder and her puppets couldn’t accept anything less than total obedience.”

“You’re right, of course,” Bashir quickly corrected. He was silent for a rare and wonderful moment before he said, “If I may ask, have you given any thought to what you’ll do once you leave here? I have a feeling you aren’t planning to return to the farm where you were staying.”

In fact, Damar had given it a great deal of thought. Most of his attempts to avoid allowing Bashir to engage him in conversation had been spent in deep contemplation over that very subject. His secret had been revealed, and it wouldn’t be long before others knew that he was alive and relatively well, and living on Bajor. That would suit Kira well enough, of course; once he was out of hiding, his own best interests would dictate that his safety was most assured if he quickly gathered as much power around himself as possible. If his recent brush with death was any indication, he had already come by some powerful enemies who had the means to gather information that no one should have known, and then act on that information with swift and near-deadly consequences “I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Going back to Cardassia is the only way I can even begin to guarantee my own survival,” he groused. Kira may not have been responsible for his attack, or the subsequent assassination attempt, but she wouldn’t be able to deny that it had resulted in _exactly_ what she wanted. If she ever bothered to see him.

“Are you sure you’ll be any safer on Cardassia? From what Garak has told me—”

“What Garak told you was no doubt comprised of obsolete methods employed by the now-nonexistent Obsidian Order. Believe me, Doctor, I stand a much better chance of avoiding another hospital sentence and your… _enthusiastic_ care if I return to my home. Or what’s left of it.” The last he had seen of Cardassia had been during his flight from the capital, before he made his way to the relief center where he was fortunate enough to stumble across the Bajoran aid workers. All around him was devastation like he had never imagined; centuries-old structures lying in ruin, corpses still scattered amidst the rubble. Children wandered aimlessly in search of food and water, orphaned by the Jem’Hadar attacks or the systematic purge of Cardassia’s intellectual class. So many had already lost family to the war, and then the Founder’s vengeance cost them what little they had left. By Cardassian custom those children would lose any status they had previously stood to gain from familial ties. Cast out from society, considered less than worthless. They were the offspring of great men and women, and they would be abandoned to the streets where disease and starvation would hit them harder than anyone else. Damar thought of his own son, and what might have become of him had he survived the Dominion’s wrath. Not even his father’s deeds would have been sufficient to keep him safe from the stigma of being a Cardassian with no family. How many sons and daughters like his own would die because of a ridiculous tradition?

“But it’s more than that,” Damar continued. Uneasy thoughts of Cardassia's unwanted still weighed heavy on his mind. “Perhaps I _can_ do more for my people. If I’m left with no other option but to go back, I may as well make the best use of my martyrdom. In time we may even earn the Alpha Quadrant’s forgiveness.”

Bashir seemed surprised. “Is that something you want?” he asked. “Forgive me, but my understanding of Cardassian culture has led me to believe that the opinions of those outside the Union mean very little to your people.”

“To my people.”

“But not to you?”

 _Apparently not anymore_ , Damar thought to himself. To Bashir he said, “I think the time has come to reexamine our priorities. Pride led us into an alliance with the Dominion. Perhaps we could benefit from a little humility now.”

“Your perspective on the matter is admirable, Damar, but I wonder if it isn’t a bit ambitious,” Bashir said. “There are undoubtedly many who will disagree. Even violently.”

Damar gestured to his wound with what he intended to be a mocking flourish, but his arms still felt too heavy to move easily. “I am well aware of that,” he said. “And speaking of my injury, I’d prefer if you didn’t mention this conversation to Kira.”

Bashir frowned. “Is there any point in asking why?”

“Probably not.”

 

* * *

 

 

“As I understand it, Damar is adamant about not returning to Cardassia. I don’t think this will change his mind.” During her many conversations with Admiral Ross that revolved around the very subject they were discussing that morning, Kira had taken great pains to avoid any mention of previous conversations with Damar. The more she distanced herself from any association with him, the easier it was to pretend that nothing existed between them. Because it didn’t, obviously. Which is exactly what she kept telling herself.

 _“It’s your job to make sure he does, Colonel,”_ Ross informed her in no uncertain terms. _“We need a man like Damar to take control of Cardassia. With his military experience, and the loyalty of the civilian population, he’ll be able to unite the different political factions vying for control. Maybe we can even withdraw our forces from Cardassian territory altogether.”_

“With all due respect, sir, that’s not really an option right now,” Kira said, already prepared to mount an aggressive defense for the continued presence of Federation support in the region. In her experience the Cardassians were most dangerous when their pride and their economy were at risk. It was a shortage of resources that had led them to Bajor seeking the planet’s mineral wealth, and an unshakable belief in their total superiority that kept them there for fifty years. If the Federation withdrew from Cardassian territory with nothing more than the latest hapless incarnation of the civilian government left standing between Cardassia and another conquest of necessity, it would be the Occupation all over again. Maybe not on Bajor, but no planet deserved that; no one deserved to be made a slave in their own home. “And I don’t think I’ll have much success convincing him to go back, either. If anything, his recent brush with death is only going to scare him deeper into hiding, once he’s able to leave Doctor Bashir’s care.” It was hiding, after all, no matter what noble intentions Damar claimed. Kira was satisfied that she had communicated that to him enough times that it might have penetrated the wall of denial he’d built around himself, but she couldn’t be sure. Every so often she thought about how easy it would be to corner him while he was confined to that hospital bed, where he was a captive audience. It wasn’t exactly fair, but that didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have.

_“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”_

In her opinion, Starfleet was giving Damar _too much_ credit. “Even if I somehow managed it, he wouldn’t be safe on Cardassia. Next time someone tries to kill him, they probably won’t risk using something Doctor Bashir might be able to cure. And Cardassia isn’t stable enough to risk sending him back without full Federation support. Are you prepared to provide that? If you’re already talking about leaving...”

 _“No need to worry about that.”_ Ross said. _“We’ve already begun making preparations on Damar’s behalf. Civilian leaders are ready to hand over their authority upon his return, and the military is already firmly in his corner. The people will welcome him back as the hero they thought they’d lost to the war.”_

The admiral seemed extremely pleased with himself, but Kira was horrified; they were backing Damar into a corner, so that by the time he was able to walk out of the hospital under his own power, everyone in the Alpha Quadrant would know he was alive. There wouldn’t be anywhere left for him to go. Kira launched herself out of the chair and slammed her palms down on Doctor Tastha’s desk. “I thought we were trying to keep this quiet,” she shouted at the screen, “but you’ve made sure that's impossible!”

Ross stared straight ahead, still favoring Kira with a diplomat’s practiced smile. After a moment he said, _“We’ve only made sure that when Damar does decide to go home, it will be a safe journey. That’s all. Leave the politics to us, Colonel. You have your orders.”_

The screen went black. Kira sank back into the seat in a defeated slump. There she was, fighting for Damar’s right to stay anonymous, when she’d spent practically her whole leave on Bajor trying to convince him of the exact opposite. She knew that Ross was right, of course; the good Damar could accomplish while in power far exceeded his desire to live a quiet life out of the spotlight, but it was how Starfleet had decided to go about it that left such a bitter taste in her mouth. Secretly, she wanted to believe that he would change his mind on his own. That it was only his ridiculous Cardassian pride that prevented him from admitting she was right.

 _Stop worrying about his damned feelings_ , she thought bitterly. “Kira to Doctor Bashir,” she said, hitting her combadge with perhaps a little more force than necessary. While she waited for his reply, Kira began mentally composing a list of reasons why it made much more sense to put Julian in charge of the task. Whether or not she truly believed them was another matter entirely.

 

* * *

 

 

“And what did you tell her?”

Damar could tell that Bashir was already tired of the game he had unwittingly been roped into playing. A game which made him the ball, repeatedly bounced between two parties who would probably find their interests better served if they simply talked to one another. Damar knew that, he knew it would be much easier not to rely on the doctor’s third-person impression of every single word from his conversation with Kira, but he refused to bend; after all,  _she_ had made the decision to ignore _him_.

“I told her I would speak to you about it. I don’t mean to pry, but is there some reason you won’t speak to the colonel yourself?” Bashir asked.

“It’s complicated.”

“Forgive me, again, but this seems rather… juvenile.”

“ _She_ is being—” Damar stopped just in time, and even managed to compose himself before continuing. “I’m sure the colonel is busy. You and I have developed a mutual understanding of one another, certainly you agree that you’re much better suited to speak for me than anyone else.”

“I spent many years in Garak’s company, Damar. I hope you don’t expect me to fall for that.”

“I’m not going to discuss it with _you_. When can I leave?” he demanded, changing the subject as swiftly as possible. The sooner he could escape the hospital and Bashir’s over-attentive company, the better. Unfortunately, it was his own body that seemed determined to keep him there, and even the simplest tasks taxed his strength until he was left muddling through a deep fatigue. Curious to see how he was feeling that evening, Damar flexed his fingers a few times, testing his grip by making a tight fist with his right hand. In no time at all his arm began to shake, and it only took a moment for his fingers to loosen and go slack of their own accord. “How long am I going to be like this?” he asked.

“It’s taking a bit longer than I originally estimated to get you back up on your feet,” Bashir admitted. He seemed genuinely apologetic, as though it had been his fault that Damar was there in the first place. “Given your most recent test results, and the progress you’ve been making during your physical therapy, I’d say two, perhaps three weeks. I’m sure you’ll be good as new by then.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” Damar said. “When will I be able to travel?”

“Until you’re able to stand on your own, move about under your own power, and remain so without requiring support, I’m afraid I cannot clear you for travel. It simply isn’t safe.”

He wanted to remind the doctor that he had shrugged off death more than once already, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t do him any good. Starfleet doctors were notoriously inflexible. They were even permitted to relieve their commanding officers if given what they considered sufficient cause. It was a wonder their vessels managed to get anywhere at all. “Well, what can I do?” he asked instead. “Is there anything that will help me recover my strength faster?”

Bashir amused himself by speculating on Damar’s motives as he puttered about the room, replacing the equipment that had been used earlier in the day. “Are you that anxious to return home? Or is it something else?”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Bashir said, setting an empty hypospray in its proper place, “just the other day you had to convince yourself that returning to Cardassia was the right decision, and now you seem willing to risk your health or your life just to get there. I’d like to believe it isn’t my bedside manner, so just what is it that has you this eager to leave Bajor?”

“A few hours aboard the _Defiant_ is hardly a risk to my life.” Probably. He was fairly certain the rest of the crew would keep Kira from flushing him out of an airlock, anyway.

“It is if we’re attacked,” Bashir said. “And you’re changing the subject again.”

He wasn’t changing the subject, he was simply refusing to acknowledge the one that Bashir seemed so keen to discuss. A subtle but clear distinction in his mind. The doctor would fill any silence offered to him, and he was clearly on the trail of Damar’s issues with Kira, so to forestall that topic he asked, “The _Defiant_ still has a cloak, doesn’t it?”

“The shields can’t be raised under cloak, remember? Whether a few hours or a few days, under the circumstances we have to take every risk into account and plan accordingly.”

Again it seemed Damar’s opinions on the matter would be overruled by the sentiments of the Federation. Something he imagined would develop into a recurring frustration in days to come. He found it mildly amusing that they were willing to send him back into the fray immediately following one attempt on his life, into a situation that would most certainly result in another, and yet they were worried that he might _fall down_ in a firefight. It would have been cause for concern if he hadn’t already resigned himself to his fate. All aspects of it. “Either way,” he muttered, settling himself into the bedding with what little strength he had left that evening. “What’s one more brush with death at this point.”

 

* * *

 

 

It had been two weeks. Two long weeks of constant back-and-forth communication with Admiral Ross, who was himself fielding an endless stream of questions, requests, and instructions from the new council overseeing the Cardassian government. In that time half if its total membership had been replaced; whether through voluntary resignation or coercion, it was impossible to say. Though very few people were speaking openly about it, Kira knew that word had managed to get out about Damar, and it seemed like every soul on campus managed to find a reason to walk by that particular building, even when it was raining. It was a security nightmare.

To make matters worse, Julian insisted that Damar not only needed to get up and walk around as part of his recovery, but he also had to do it _outside_. It still rained on and off, and the sky never seemed to clear for more than few hours at a time, but according to the doctor it was the best way to help Damar regain his strength. Kira was skeptical that being outside rather than inside played any great part in the healing process, but she wasn’t about to march in there and start a debate over it.

She caught glimpses of Damar once in a while. Every so often when she was leaving Doctor Tastha’s office after a particularly stressful conversation with Admiral Ross, making her way to the small shrine on campus to seek clarity or just enjoy the silence and solitude, she would pass by the window that overlooked the central garden. Heeding her requests to be mindful of his safety, Julian took Damar for his walks out there, bundled up in a hideous knit tunic that was apparently meant to help keep him warm. It was covered with intersecting straight lines and diamond patterns, in a shade of brown and red that Kira was certain would have given Garak fits. She could only imagine how long it had taken to make him wear it, let alone convince him that he had to actually leave the relative warmth of the building and go outside in the chilly autumn air. Despite the late season, some of the trees were still flowering, keeping the small garden from appearing totally desolate. Damar, with his permanent scowl and constant glaring, had the exact opposite effect. She had seen him smile exactly once, after Julian had slipped and put one foot into a pond. When Julian tried to laugh it off, Damar returned to sulking and wandering around in circles, apparently ignoring whatever the doctor was attempting to discuss with him.

She may have lingered at the window longer than she cared to admit.

Each day Kira’s resolve to keep herself apart from Damar weakened that much more, and she found herself repeatedly drawn to that spot overlooking the garden. One unusually sunny afternoon afforded her the opportunity to join Doctor Tastha for lunch and pass the garden without being forced to admit that she had failed her own convictions. The windows in the corridor were all open for the first time in weeks, and she was enjoying the crisp breeze as she walked by, determined to convince herself that she wasn’t hoping they would be outside. They were, of course, and apparently deep in conversation. Without stopping it was difficult to tell just what the subject was, or how serious it might be. Kira slowed her pace just a bit, and caught a brief exchange that changed everything.

“I find your war orphan initiative admirable, Damar, but you must remember that you’ll be challenging a thousand years of cultural taboo.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how my people will react to my decisions, Doctor.”

Bashir shrugged, picked up a small stone, and lobbed it into the pond. “I’m sure you’ll have the Federation’s full support, in any case. It’s wonderful to know that Cardassia will have someone at the helm who truly cares about the wellbeing of his people.”

The conversation turned political after that, but the thrum of Kira’s pulse as it pounded in her ears reduced most of their words to background noise. Damar was going to return to Cardassia, _he was already making plans_ , and he hadn't bothered to say anything to her. Nor had Julian, who probably excused it to himself as a matter of doctor-patient trust. Not even Admiral Ross, who most certainly knew by now, and yet continued to let her rail against him regardless. In hindsight she felt like a fool for not realizing sooner; of course Ross must have had some indication that Damar would be open to the possibility of returning to Cardassia. What good would it do to force him if he only abdicated his position again? What infuriated her the most was that she had actually stood there and  _defended_ his right to live his life free of the Federation’s interference. Despite her own personal feelings on the matter, and what she knew was right, she had fought for him. And yet he had orchestrated his return home behind her back. He had to have known she would discover the truth eventually, unless he really believed he could go back to Cardassia, resume his previous position, and simply never tell her.

Kira turned and headed back in the direction of Doctor Tastha’s office. She would apologize later for missing their lunch date, but there was an important call to be made. A _long_ overdue conversation she needed to have with Admiral Ross.

 

* * *

 

 

Julian was only informed that they would be returning to the station a few hours before the _Defiant_ was scheduled to depart Bajor. He had intended to keep Damar in the hospital for at least another week, perhaps even two, but it seemed Starfleet Command had other ideas. They simply weren’t willing to wait any longer to begin their overhaul of the Cardassian government, and as Damar was the focal point of that endeavor, it was apparently necessary to rush the departure date and forgo protocol. The powers that approved these measures had made no effort whatsoever to consult Julian on the matter, and he had a feeling that his input would not have been appreciated had he made a move to object. So, with only a few hours’ warning to gather his supplies, prepare Damar for transport and travel, and pack up his meager belongings, Julian set to work putting everything in order.

He was nearly finished breaking down the makeshift lab they had erected in the recovery ward when Doctor Tastha appeared in the doorway, announcing her presence with a gentle tap on the door frame. “Busy?” she asked.

“I can certainly spare a moment. How can I help you, Doctor Tastha?”

She shook her head at him as she shuffled into the room. “It's always a good idea to visit with friends one more time before parting,” she said. "And I thought you might need a hand."

Julian found it difficult to believe that she considered him anything more than a necessary annoyance, given the nature of their working relationship since the day he arrived. Regardless, he smiled and gestured her over. “That's very kind, thank you. While I'm thinking of it, I'd also like to thank you for your hospitality."

“You can thank my assistant for that. He’s been bunking with the new students since you arrived. I’m sure he’ll appreciate sleeping in his own bed again,” Tastha said with a chuckle.

“I didn’t realize. Please, relay my appreciation, if you wouldn't mind.”

That resulted in a derisive snort from the elderly Bajoran. Julian couldn't imagine what he'd said that she found so objectionable, and he didn't have time to ask. “I would ask if you’d like to join me for dinner when you've finished in here, but I doubt you’ll pause your frantic preparations just for that,” she said.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. I’m truly sorry,” Julian apologized. “Perhaps if we have some time after I’m finished—”

“I’m not waiting that long just to eat a meal. Besides, if the way Colonel Kira has been storming around is any indication, you'll be lucky if she doesn't beam you up to your ship with or without your belongings. But it’s alright,” Tastha reassured him. “I won’t hold it against you.”

“I appreciate that. And I promise to make it up to you next time I’m on Bajor,” Bashir said with what he hoped was a charming smile. Not that it was likely to do him much good. He scanned the last of the crates that would be going back to the station and transferred the finished list to a padd, then closed the lid and secured the latches. “Pardon me for just a moment,” he said, before tapping his combadge and saying, “Bashir to _Defiant_. I have six crates ready for transport from the surface.”

 _“Acknowledged, Doctor,”_ came the swift reply from Nog. _“Beaming them aboard now.”_

With his first task complete, Julian began composing a mental checklist of everything he would need to accomplish in the time he had left. Though Tastha didn’t feel there would be an opportunity to stop and take a break before the _Defiant_ was ready to depart, he still had hopes that there might be time to visit one or two of the local shops in the nearby market. Ezri hadn't mentioned that she expected anything, but it seemed only fitting to bring her a gift after he had disappeared to Bajor for nearly a month.

“Are you planning to restrain your patient for the journey?” Tastha asked, interrupting his personal tangent.

Julian found the mere suggestion of restraints shocking, and he made no effort to hide the fact when he answered. “I wouldn’t have considered it,” he said. “I doubt he would be willing to undergo such draconian methods of safeguarding his health, either.”

Tastha simply shrugged, as though she hadn’t proposed anything out of the ordinary. “If you ask me, it would do him some good to be strapped down for a while.”

“Is that because he’s a Cardassian?” Julian asked before he could stop himself. Tastha shot him an icy glare that would have sent Damar scrambling for that knit tunic he hated so much. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“That I would needlessly torment a patient because of personal bias? Of course that’s what you meant. You think just because I’m Bajoran that means I’m willing to mistreat someone in my care?” She reached up and poked him in the chest with one long, bony finger. “You may find this difficult to believe, _Doctor Bashir_ , but in spite of the Occupation—or perhaps even because of it—I still place a high value on life. _Every_ life. That includes dead Cardassian heroes.”

“Hold on, how do you…?”

“Please, do you think I wouldn’t notice my patient was the man whose face was plastered on every screen from here to Romulus the day he turned against the Dominion? You Federation people. You always think you’re the only ones who know what’s going on. I guarantee that everyone who has set foot on this campus knows who we’ve got in here. And I’d imagine everyone in the Alpha Quadrant knows by now, too. So before you rush to assume that I would suggest those _draconian_ methods out of pure spite, remember who it was that kept his secret before you even arrived.”

The reprimand was harsh, but duly received. “I apologize,” Julian said. “I shouldn’t have rushed to judgment.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Tastha snapped, though her reprimand carried a little less vitriol the second time around. “Besides that, I only suggested you restrain him because he’s a stubborn idiot who doesn’t know what’s best for him. After all the time you two have spent together, I would think you might appreciate that.”

She did have a point. Julian considered what Damar might say when he was told that he would have to spend the entire trip lying still on a table. He might give in, eventually. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t find him particularly disagreeable. Thankfully, most of his frustration doesn’t seem to be directed at _me_. Rather it seems to be an indiscriminate byproduct of whatever problems he has with Colonel Kira.”

“Problems?”

“I’ve noticed he becomes extremely agitated whenever she’s mentioned, or we discuss something that touches on the time he spent with her while the two of them were in the Cardassian resistance.” Julian had given the matter a great deal of thought since the first time he tried to broach the subject during a conversation with Damar. Clearly the two of them were at odds over something personal; their unspoken refusal to acknowledge one another, let alone occupy the same space, led him to believe that it might be a result of specific events in their shared history, rather than simple dislike. Perhaps a remnant of something that had occurred during the Cardassian rebellion. He was likewise unable to rule out the possibility that Kira had encountered Damar during her leave on Bajor, despite what she claimed, and their animosity stemmed from that. If that was the case, there could be any number of reasons for the private feud. Without more information, which neither party seemed willing to divulge, he couldn’t begin to guess.

He was still considering the strange situation when Doctor Tastha snickered. “Did I say something strange?” he asked.

“No, no,” she said, waving her hand back and forth a few times. “I just find it rather amusing, that's all. You’re a brilliant physician, a man utterly dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, yet you seem woefully naive when it comes to the simplest matters.”

“Hold on, if you know something—”

“Oh, goodness,” Tastha said with a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose I’ll have to be a bit more direct; you don’t recall how many times he asked for her in those first few days? How angry he was when she didn’t come? Don’t tell me you've never seen her standing at that window while the two of you take your walks in the center garden.”

He had seen Kira there, actually. Somehow Damar himself had never seemed to notice, and given his reaction to the mere mention of her name, Julian had avoided drawing attention to her presence. What Tastha was implying struck Julian as impossible, though. As a rule, Kira seemed repulsed by Cardassians, with very few exceptions. Tekeny Ghemor had been something of a surrogate father to her, and Ziyal had been like a younger sister, or a good friend. But Damar… “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “That can’t possibly be the cause. Despite his actions at the end of the war, Damar has done things that I’m certain Kira could never forgive.”

“Feelings like that don’t always bother themselves with whether or not you’re able to forgive someone,” Tastha said sagely. “And if those two are anything to go by, they don’t seem to care very much whether you particularly _like_ the person, either.” She reached up and patted Julian on the shoulder. A far cry from her normal pokes and prods. “I may not be able to speak for a Cardassian legate, but trust one angry Bajoran woman when it comes to another.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to dedicate this final chapter to my friends, who have been patiently listening to me talk (and whine) about this story for a solid year. Particularly Winzler, who has been a great source of encouragement. Without her feedback and support I probably wouldn't be planning to write an entire series about of these two jerks.

“The last time I set foot on that station, I was there as a conqueror.”  
  
“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? You were only Gul Dukat’s adjutant,” Bashir reminded him. “Also, as I recall you were with Colonel Kira when she returned to the station, after you stole the Breen weapon. Weren’t you?”  
  
“I stayed on the ship.”  
  
“Well, that should still count for something. You _were_ there as an ally.”  
  
Damar was sitting on the edge of the examination table, watching Bashir work. He’d had enough of lying down during his time on Bajor, but the doctor had refused to let him walk around while they were underway, so he settled for defying him the only way he currently could: by sitting up. “I doubt anyone on the station will see the distinction,” he said. “Especially if they were there for the Dominion occupation. I wasn’t exactly…” He pushed aside some of the more unfortunate and sadly accurate ways he could have described himself during that time. “I specifically asked to be taken directly to Cardassia Prime. What reason is there to shuttle me to and from on different ships?”  
  
“Starfleet Command and your own government seemed to feel it was best if they conducted your debriefing on the station. Please lie down, Damar.”  
  
“No. What debriefing? What information could I possibly provide them that they might find relevant? Obsolete Bajoran farming practices that no one on that backwards planet seems willing to abandon? Weather updates? I’ll give you a summary: _rain_.”  
  
In a move disturbingly reminiscent of Doctor Tastha, whose company Damar in no way regretted leaving, Bashir placed a firm hand on his shoulder and pushed him back until he was forced to lie against the padded table. The effort it took to resist only weakened him further, which was both discouraging and infuriating. Whenever he started to feel like his strength was returning, something would happen to remind him that he still had a long way to go before he was back in fighting form. Not that he would be doing much fighting anymore. He had never wanted to be a politician, but oh, how quickly he had learned that his wants came second, at best.  
  
“If I knew what they wanted from you, I’d have told you,” Bashir said. “Now, it’ll be a while yet before we arrive at the station. I’d like for you to be able to walk yourself through the airlock when we get there.”  
  
“What’s the alternative?” Damar asked.  
  
“Something you will no doubt find unacceptable and humiliating,” Bashir said. “Were it up to me, you’d be on Bajor for another week, at least. Unfortunately—or I’m sure fortunately, from your perspective—no one else was willing to wait that long. But Starfleet’s orders do not also require that I allow you to needlessly endanger yourself.” Concluding his lecture with a patronizing smile and a boyish head tilt, Bashir turned away and began to putter about the room. Damar was almost certain that Bashir was lying, but proving that didn’t seem important enough to challenge whatever security the doctor could potentially summon to enforce his orders.  
  
Everything was happening so fast. The first few months he’d spent on Bajor had seemed to crawl, with minutes turning into hours at a pace that was maddening. That was, until the moment Kira arrived on Moren’s farm. Then it all jumped forward at a dizzying speed, punctuated by events that he could still recall with perfect clarity, as if they had happened only moments before. If he concentrated he could remember the warmth of Kira’s body, the thrill of touching her in ways more intimate than he had ever imagined, and he could still feel his anger and humiliation when she walked away. In his mind, he had only just promised himself that he would never go back to Cardassia, furious that she had tried to convince him he should. Now here he was, living cargo aboard the _Defiant_ , waiting for an official escort back to a home that barely existed anymore. The returning hero, come back from the dead. What would he even say? And why, despite his very justified anger, did he still wish Kira would come to see him? Why was she _still_ occupying his thoughts so heavily when he was only days from returning to power as the leader of the Cardassian Union? It seemed petty to be so concerned with a single Bajoran woman when he had millions of lives waiting eagerly for the life changing decisions he would make on their behalf.  
  
He spent some time dwelling on that unlikely turn of events in an effort to clear his mind of all thoughts related to Kira. Who could have foreseen where his posting to the _Groumall_ would lead him in just a few short years? No one, obviously. A foot soldier from an unremarkable family, one number of thousands who had only been assigned to Dukat’s ship because they weren’t willing to give the man better soldiers. A nobody who had somehow gained the respect and admiration of his people, and who stood to wield more power than any Cardassian alive—assuming he wasn’t killed in his sleep, first. He had more before him than he could have ever dreamed of in his youth. Why did he feel so uneasy about it? Assassination attempts were the hallmark of a job well done, and he’d been the target of more than one during his time trailing in Weyoun’s diminutive shadow. Was it the fear of failure that made him so nervous?  
  
“I assume I’ll be expected to give a public address. I should probably start thinking about what I’m going to say to my people,” he said, more to himself than the doctor. Bashir handed him a padd without turning away from his own. Damar took it and frowned. “Wonderful. You know, if it’s so important that I remain on this table, you could at least help pass the time.”  
  
Bashir looked up from his work, shifting his gaze between Damar and the device in his hand, as if he had only just realized he’d even picked it up. “You’d like me to help?” he asked.  
  
“I never thought I’d say this, but the silence is almost worse than your incessant need to fill it. If you don’t want to help me with this, you could always just talk to me.”  
  
“Damar, I’ve been talking to you for the past six hours. I’m sorry if you’re bored—”  
  
“Forget I asked,” Damar snapped. He dropped the padd onto his lap and left it there.  
  
The sickbay was quiet for some time after that, with nothing but the hum of the ship’s engines and the sound of Bashir tapping away at the padd to punctuate the stillness. Damar passed the time by trying to puzzle out what had so captured the doctor’s attention. After a while he gave up and asked, “What are you writing?”  
  
“A report of my time on Bajor. Don’t worry, I’ve neglected to include the numerous examples of your more charming personality traits.”  
  
Damar huffed a petulant sigh and picked up his own discarded padd. As his mind whirled with thoughts of encouraging platitudes and stirring honors to the fallen, he simultaneously began to compose an imaginary letter filled with everything he wanted to say to Kira. Most of it was accusatory, and some of it was borderline apologetic. In the end he wrote neither, and the padd was set aside again. How could he begin to address his people when he wasn’t even able to tell them where he’d been? “What would you say?” he asked Bashir, who was still absorbed in his work.  
  
Interrupted yet again, Bashir finally set his report aside and looked up at Damar. “I would tell them the truth,” he said. “Don’t you think they deserve that much?”  
  
“I’m surprised you feel they deserve anything.”  
  
Bashir ignored the obvious bait and continued. “Were I in your shoes, with the sort of plans you have been discussing, I would approach this new vision for Cardassia with nothing to hide, no secrets that might compromise the integrity of your position. Your people have been lied to, manipulated, made to see enemies lurking in every shadow long before the Dominion set foot on your soil. If you want to change their outlook on centuries of aggression and paranoia, you will have to begin with your administration.”  
  
“I’m not certain you realize that total honesty requires I admit I left them in their darkest hour. In the hands of the Klingons and the Federation, no less.”  
  
“I’d like to think being under the protection of the Federation isn’t so bad,” Bashir said, sounding mildly offended.  
  
“You, the Klingons, the Dominion; I doubt the Cardassian people see much of a difference between one enemy and another at this point. We exchanged one occupying force for two more, and among those two is the enemy that pushed us into our ill-fated alliance with the Dominion in the first place.” He shut his eyes and sighed. “No,” he corrected himself, “that’s not true. We willingly sold our souls for the promise of power.” _We’re responsible for our own destruction,_ he thought grudgingly. “It’s time I admitted that, especially if I ever expect my people to understand it.” Even Dukat only shared a portion of the blame, though it had been his lust for power and endless thirst for validation which had acted as the catalyst for their downfall. Still, he’d hardly been alone. And if Dukat was to blame, logically, so was Damar. “I can’t hope to change anything if I can’t even bring myself to admit it was our own wounded pride that caused this.”  
  
“But you have,” Bashir said. “You’ve admitted it to yourself, and that’s more than many would be capable of in your place. Small steps may yet lead to great strides.” He sounded very proud of himself and his generous wisdom.  
  
Damar thought about it for a moment. Yet again, as unpleasant as it was to admit, Bashir made a good point. He picked up the padd and started writing again. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said as he typed.  
  
Bashir looked up with a broad smile. “Ah, how so?”  
  
“I don’t think I want to talk, after all.”

 

He assumed the one place Kira couldn’t avoid him was at the airlock, where they would be thrown together by protocol while disembarking the ship, and she would have no choice but to acknowledge him. He was wrong. Instead, Damar found the small Ferengi waiting for him, accompanied by four Starfleet officers that appeared to be part of a security detail. All were armed, apart from the Ferengi boy, who was pacing back and forth between his comrades. He seemed to be mumbling something to himself, but his lips stopped their frantic flapping when he realized Bashir and Damar were approaching.  
  
“Welcome to Deep Space Nine,” the Ferengi barked in an uncomfortably forced and formal tone. “I’m Lieutenant Nog, and I will be acting as your official escort today. Please, this way,” he said, pointing the way with one arm outstretched, as if Damar didn’t know how to get around the station on his own.  
  
“Why are _you_ here?” Damar asked rudely.

The shocked stutter from the Ferengi was more than worth the reproachful frown Bashir shot him. “I, uh… this way,” Nog repeated. “I’ll show you to your quarters.”  
  
“Isn’t this something the station’s commanding officer should be doing?”  
  
Nog faltered another step, but to his credit he never paused his brisk pace down the corridor. “We’ll be approaching the bridge to the habitat ring shortly. Your quarters aren’t far. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. Deep Space Nine also boasts a number of shops, restaurants, and other—”  
  
“ _I’ve been here before,_ ” Damar growled. “Several times.”  
  
“I know, but I memorized what I’m supposed to say in this order. I can’t remember the rest if I skip anything. So, Deep Space Nine boasts a number of shops…”  
  
Damar ignored him after that. There may have been something important in the jumble of information spewing from the boy’s tiny, orange mouth, but it wasn’t worth the frustration of listening to the rest. He turned his thoughts to the speech he had spent the last several hours writing, erasing, rewriting, and editing. It had been so simple when he was speaking from the heart, urging his people to join his fight against the Dominion. There had been no anguished hours, then. No wasted time spent painstakingly crafting each and every word as though he’d only just discovered language. He still wasn’t satisfied with the results of his work on the ship; the finished draft read like a student’s fumbling attempts at an apologetic address to his instructors.  
  
By the time they arrived at his quarters—a large guest suite Damar recalled had once been pointlessly set aside for the female Changeling—he was in no mood for any more of Lieutenant Nog’s mindless recitation of the station’s apparently endless amenities. “I have a request,” he said.  
  
Nog’s mouth snapped shut. Finally.  
  
“You’ll inform Colonel Kira that I wish to meet with her to discuss my debriefing. Immediately.” Damar allowed himself a satisfied smirk. Kira could avoid him out of spite, but she couldn’t avoid her duty. “You can leave now,” he added.  
  
Nog grimaced and stepped aside as two of the four officers who had been with them took position on either side of the door. Damar noted that in addition to the lack of Bajoran security personnel, who were typically responsible for overseeing station affairs, all four were human. He wondered if that had been Kira’s decision or if she had been overruled by Admiral Ross. Although in his estimation it didn’t seem much safer to entrust his safety to humans, rather than Bajorans. Unless the decision had nothing to do with the war.  
  
“I’ll also be going now,” Bashir said once Nog and the other two officers had excused themselves. “Please notify me if any of your symptoms worsen. And you needn’t worry, I’ll apologize to Nog for you, as well. I’m sure you regret letting fatigue get the better of your manners.”  
  
“Of course. I’m sure that will brighten his day,” Damar said wryly. “Feel free to come by whenever you find yourself plagued with an overabundance of silence, Doctor.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Bashir said. “Now, get some rest.” He patted Damar on the shoulder. “You have a lot of work ahead of you.”  
  
Bashir’s advice was well intended, but Damar had no plans to rest any time soon. He entered his new quarters and turned around a few times, taking in the space, and wondering just what he was supposed to do without any belongings to unpack. Apart from the padd Bashir had given him aboard the _Defiant_ , he was empty handed and totally directionless. The rooms were pleasantly balmy—no doubt thanks to the doctor’s keen attention to detail, and a line of fresh clothes had been laid out on a small table next to the adjoining office. Nothing elaborate, but a far cry from the worn out garb of a farmhand, or the offensive knit monstrosity that had been forced on him while he was recuperating.  
  
It had been months since he’d had a proper Cardassian meal, and so his first act was to replicate something that didn’t taste like the inedible mash Bajorans were so fond of consuming whenever they had the chance. “Sem’hal stew,” he said. The replicator immediately materialized his order. “And one glass of… Make that one cup of red leaf tea.” He had always enjoyed a glass of kanar with his stew. In fact, for a long time he had enjoyed a glass of kanar with everything—including another glass of kanar. Or a bottle. For the first time in more than a year he considered having a drink, but quickly dismissed it as his tea materialized in the replicator.  
  
It was odd, being alone again after so long plagued by Bashir and Tastha’s constant presence. Even Moren had been better company than the silence of an empty room, though he had barely spoken two words to Damar on a good day. The solitude of his quarters made the already large room seem even larger, and reminded him just how little he had to show for a year of trying to convince himself that he had everything he needed. For a brief and ridiculous moment he was tempted return his meal to the replicator and instead visit Quark’s. The thought of losing himself in a few hours of mindless gaming was tempting after so long spent staring at blank walls and windows that looked out on gray skies, but he dismissed the idea when he remembered his message to Kira, and that he had nothing to gamble _with_. He wondered if Quark would extend him a small line of credit, but that seemed even more ridiculous than the thought of facing Kira across a dabo table.  
  
In the end he ate his stew and forced himself to drink the tea, which was as awful as he had expected from a replicator reprogrammed by Starfleet. His meal completed, Damar returned the empty dishes to the replicator. He made his way to the side table and took a quick inventory of the clothing that had been provided for him. Although they had given him something more comfortable—and much cleaner—to wear while he was recuperating, it still seemed like a good idea to change before his meeting with Kira. Choosing an outfit turned out to be a needlessly complicated affair—following a dress code was so much easier and more efficient, and he longed for a simple uniform; there was no guesswork involved in putting on the same thing everyone else was wearing. The jacket he eventually settled on was dark green, paneled on the underside of the sleeves and the sides of the chest with a complementary pale brown. Black piping separated the two colors, and lined both the low, wide collar and the cuffs. He felt a little odd, wearing something so immodest, but then he didn’t have much of a reason not to anymore. Not that it had ever stopped him when he did.  
  
Minutes of pacing the room eventually turned into hours of sitting on the couch, and Damar found himself battling exhaustion as he waited for the response he was beginning to suspect might not be coming. After eventually succumbing to sleep, he came to again in the middle of a particularly unpleasant dream, only to realize that at some point his head had become wedged down in the corner of the sofa, with his neck twisted at an odd angle. “Computer, time,” he demanded tiredly.  
  
_“The time is twenty-five hundred hours, fifty-two minutes.”_  
  
He had been asleep for almost four hours. It was far too late to expect Kira, which meant that she had no intention of bothering with him until at least the morning, if at all. Complaining quietly to himself, he left the couch and trudged into the bedroom, where he stripped out of the clothes he had wasted time selecting and fell into the bed. He felt like a fool for believing that Kira would respond to his message right away, and even more like a fool for being so dismayed when she didn’t. His own emotions were becoming more treacherous than his enemies had been. Apart from their desire to kill him, anyway. Though he wasn’t so sure anymore that they didn’t have _that_ in common, too.  
  
It was some time before he was able to fall asleep again, and when he did his rest was fitful, and marked by terrible memories masquerading as dreams.

 

* * *

 

 

“Uh, Colonel?” Nog’s entreating squeak came from behind Kira as she stepped onto the turbolift. When she turned around he straightened up and said, “You have a message from Legate Damar. Again. He’s requesting to speak to you at your earliest convenience.”  
  
“Thank you,” Kira said. “You have Ops.”  
  
“Sir,” Nog confirmed with a quick nod.  
  
It was the ninth “request” from Damar in four days. The first one had been delivered as an arrogant demand—an expectation that he seemed to believe would be fulfilled in prompt order. It had been the same on the second day, and most of the third. Around the afternoon of the fourth, he finally seemed to have grasped that Kira was under no obligation to spare him any of her time. The wording of his messages had then quickly shifted, becoming more polite, and much more formal. She smirked as the turbolift came to a stop. He could ask for her once an hour and hand-write the messages in poetic, ancient Bajoran script, it wouldn’t make a difference. If he wanted to speak to her he could have done it back on Bajor. When it mattered.  
  
Her understanding was that Damar hadn’t left his quarters since his second day on the station, when he had apparently decided to amuse himself with a walk around the Promenade. What no one had told him, on Kira’s orders, was that a security detail would be by his side or positioned outside his door twenty-six hours a day, as long as he was on the station. The report she’d received about the incident stated that Damar had made it roughly halfway to his destination, demanding the whole way that he be left alone, before he finally gave up and marched back to his quarters. The report also included some of the rather colorful statements that Damar had made to the two officers who were following him. Kira did not find that nearly as amusing, although it was far less surprising than how quickly he had backed down. His second brush with death seemed to have mellowed him a bit.  
  
Something else Damar didn’t know, and what kept Kira in such high spirits despite the constant barrage of invitations to meetings she had a feeling were probably pointless attempts to force her into a confrontation, was that in less than sixteen hours Damar would be boarding a ship bound for Cardassia. After a fierce debate with Starfleet’s diplomatic team over the best way to ferry the hero back to his people, five members of the newest Cardassian civilian council and three representatives from what was left of Central Command were dispatched to escort Damar home. Admittedly, Kira found the whole ordeal somewhat bittersweet. On the one hand, she would be glad to rid herself of his endless need to validate his own petty anger; on the other, the way things had ended between them meant that she had probably lost any hope of his support for a true attempt at reconciliation between Cardassia and Bajor. Damar knew how much it meant to her—she had made no effort to hide it from him. That was how she knew for certain that he would go out of his way to do nothing about it. Despite his few virtues, which were arguable at best, Damar was still a Cardassian. Spite was a matter of course for their people.  
  
She reached the last turn before her quarters, where the lure of home and her own bed was enough to drive her frustration with Damar from her mind almost entirely. After a day spent listening to politicians pander back and forth from different ends of the quadrant, she was looking forward to a quiet evening by herself, a long night’s rest, and waking up to a day that signaled the end of a problem she had been forced to deal with since her very unwise decision to take a vacation. With practiced efficiency she slipped out of her uniform, into her nightclothes, and under the covers. There was no need for a nightly ritual to put her in the mood for sleep, she was already halfway there before she even remembered to lower the lights. In fact, Kira was so tired that she initially thought it was a dream when the door in the main room chimed to announce a visitor.  
  
Checking the time wouldn’t make whoever was there go away, and so she forced herself to get out of bed and make her way into the other room. “Come in,” she said as she approached the door.  It opened onto a scene that made her immediately regret not rolling over and going back to sleep.  
  
“...to stop following me!” Damar shouted at the two officers by his side—Haskins and Lawton, who had made the unfortunate choice to volunteer for their assignment as Damar’s bodyguards. “I have business with the Colonel, and I am more than capable of managing that without a chaperon!”  
  
“What do you want, Damar?” Kira sighed. She made no effort to hide her disdain for anyone’s sake. Even if it hadn’t been the middle of the night, the last thing she was in the mood for was an irate Cardassian dropping by uninvited because he couldn’t handle being ignored. “And I hope for your sake the answer is something no one else can solve for you in the next few minutes,” she added, “or I’m closing this door and going back to bed.”  
  
“We need to talk,” Damar said, marching past and into Kira’s quarters without bothering to ask permission. “And I’m tired of waiting.”  
  
“Oh, well, by all means. Come right in.”  
  
“Sir, we tried to make him wait, but he wouldn’t listen,” Haskins said. She kept her voice pitched low. “Would you like us to call for assistance?”  
  
“It’s fine, Jara. I can handle this myself,” Kira said. “I’ll take him back to his quarters once he’s worn himself out talking, the next shift will be there by then.”  
  
Haskins hesitated, frowning at Damar, who was standing in the middle of the room with his arms out, as if waiting for some sort of response.After a while Haskins seemed to accept that there was no need to stay, and with a respectful nod, she and Lawton left.  
  
“You know them by name. Did you hand-pick my security detail?” Damar asked as the door slid shut again.  
  
Kira sighed and shrugged, letting her arms slap against her sides. “What makes you think I don’t know them already? We _do_ live on the same station.”  
  
Damar smirked as though he had uncovered some great secret. It quickly disappeared again, and Kira wondered if he hadn't temporarily forgotten why he was there in the first place. “I don’t appreciate that you sent the Ferengi to meet me at the airlock,” he complained bitterly. “I expected a bit more respect from the commander of this station.”  
  
“Nog is one of my best people.”  
  
“And what does that say about the state of your command?”  
  
“I’m not in the mood for posturing, Damar. Get to the point or get out,” Kira snapped. She crossed her arms and waited for him to make his point. If he actually had one.  
  
“You have been avoiding me,” he said, aiming an accusatory finger at her from across the room. “I was lying in that hospital bed for _weeks_ , and you made no attempt to see or speak to me.”  
  
Kira scoffed. She had hoped that _maybe_ he had a legitimate grievance, or he just wanted to rub it in her face that he had made plans to go back to Cardassia on his own. Instead it seemed like he just wanted to stomp his foot and yell about feeling abandoned. “You woke me up to complain that you were _lonely?_ Don’t worry, Damar, I’m sure you’ll have all the company you want on Cardassia.”  
  
“It’s not about that!” he shouted. “I could have died, does that—” He stopped himself and clenched his fists, twisting his face into a grimace. She wondered what he could possibly have to say that made him think it was worth barging into her quarters just to start a fight. “I’m going back. And that bothers you now?” he continued, slightly calmer than before.  
  
“You’re going back because you have no _choice_. And I don’t know why you think that’s any of my business now. If your decision to return to Cardassia had anything to do with me, you wouldn’t have arranged it behind my back. That’s right,” she said, feeling a surge of righteousness when Damar turned away from her accusation. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you were making plans with Admiral Ross and his team at Starfleet Command? What was the _point_ , Damar? You had to know I would find out eventually, it’s not like you could go back and somehow keep it a secret. Was it just one more way to lash out at me? Refuse my advice until your back is against the wall, and then duck for cover under the safe shield offered by the Federation? Well, you got what you wanted! You don’t have to worry about what I think, or how I feel. But you don’t have my sympathy, either. So deal with your conflicted feelings by yourself, it’s not my problem.” She was in full fury by the time she finished, storming over to the wall beside the bedroom to get herself a glass of water. Her hands shook as she tilted it back. It was _absurd_ that he could trigger her temper so easily.  
  
Damar was quiet. Kira watched him from the corner of her eye, half expecting him to respond with an outburst of his own once he had gathered his thoughts, but he was silent. After a moment he looked up and said,  “I was angry at you for ignoring me.”  
  
“Of _course_ you were, that was the point! But did you really think trying to hide the negotiations from me was a good idea?”  
  
“At the time. Why didn’t you come?”  
  
It was becoming harder and harder for Kira to hold on to the rage that had been fueling her since the start of her tirade. She tried to laugh at his question, but her mind supplied the answer before she could make a sound; _Because I didn’t want to admit that I was worried,_ she thought involuntarily. “You accused me of trying to seduce you to get what I wanted for Bajor,” she said instead. “Why do you _think_ I didn’t come?”  
  
“I could have died.”  
  
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she muttered into her glass as she took another sip.  
  
“Damn it, Kira!” Damar snarled. He rounded the corner of the couch beside her and stepped in close. “I am making an effort. I am trying to tell you I recognized my mistake. But—” He stopped himself again.  
  
“You want me to admit I was wrong, too,” she finished for him.  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“Well you’re going to have to live without it!”  
  
Damar’s control over his temper finally slipped, and he slammed a fist down on the back of the couch. “Would you have cared at all?”  
  
“What kind of question is that?” Kira demanded. “Why are you so intent on proving that there’s something more going on here?” Deep down she really didn’t want to know his motivations, not that she couldn’t have guessed. It was just an excuse to be angry. The fury was like a hook in her chest, jerking her forward. It just just the unfortunate side effect of moving her in Damar’s general direction.  
  
“Because I can’t stop thinking about that day on Bajor,” he said. “No matter how hard I try to forget that it ever happened.”  
  
Well, Kira thought with an inward sigh, they had that much in common, at least.

 

* * *

 

 

“I thought it might be interesting. You know, a different take on what I’d learned of Cardassian culture from Garak, only this time from the perspective of someone who was on the ground, in the fray. Rather than…” Julian shrugged at his own inability to finish his thought. He finally gave up and took a sip of his drink. “Whatever it was Garak was doing. I’m not sure I want to know more than I already do.”  
  
“Cardassians aren’t pets, Doctor. You can’t just get a replacement when the first one runs away,” Quark said. “And even if you could, why would you _want_ to? One was enough if you ask me.”  
  
Julian rolled his eyes and took another drink. He was watching Quark break down the bar for the evening, and apart from two dabo girls on the second level who were, as far as he could tell, engrossed in a friendly debate over Bajoran politics, they were alone. Julian was nursing something that he probably needn’t have requested Quark prepare light, if the watery taste was any indication. “I’m sure that’s why you have such a healthy, respectful relationship with Constable Ilpal,” he muttered under his breath, knowing full well Quark would hear it.  
  
Quark stopped stacking glasses and turned to Julian with a deep frown that pulled at his already creased jowls. “She knows what she did.”  
  
He was about to ask if the constable’s crime was nothing more than not being Odo, but he caught sight of Lieutenant Haskins entering the bar from the Promenade. It had been his understanding that she was part of the current shift assigned to Damar’s protection detail. When she came closer he beckoned her over. “Did they change the duty roster?” _Or are you just sick of Damar already,_ he wondered.  
  
Haskins shook her head. “I was relieved by the colonel. Apparently,” she said with a sigh as she settled down on the stool next to him, “Legate Damar decided he was tired of waiting to speak to her, and he invited himself over for a _talk_.” The last word was laden with so much sarcasm that Julian decided it was unnecessary to ask if the conversation had been friendly or not. “The last thing I heard was shouting.” She slumped her shoulders and turned to Quark. “Just a nightcap, please.”  
  
Quark obliged, and Julian noticed that as he shuffled about behind the counter he was grinning in an odd, suspiciously smug manner. That was never a good sign. “What’s got you smiling?” he asked.  
  
“Oh, nothing,” Quark lied. His smile became wider and even more disturbing, if that was possible. “I’m just glad someone around here finally listened to my advice for once.”  
  
Julian was baffled. “What?”  
  
But Quark had already turned his back, and was once more engrossed in stacking glasses. Julian turned to Haskins, but she had finished her drink, and was on her feet again heading for the door. She cast a parting wave over her shoulder as she stepped out onto the Promenade.  
  
He frowned at the increasingly frustrating situation brewing around Kira and Damar. It was utterly inconceivable that everyone knew something he didn’t. Tastha was one thing, and he had spent a fair amount of time pointing out the many flaws in her theory, but Quark, too? Julian turned back to the bar, again demanding, “ _What?_ ”

 

* * *

 

 

Damar felt as if he had been holding his breath from the moment he walked into her quarters—stormed in, really. When he recognized the look on Kira’s face, the weariness of someone who knew all too well how taxing it was to deny something so strong it almost demanded attention, his anxiety briefly subsided. It was then quickly replaced with guilt. Yes, she cared. In some way, though maybe not the way he wanted; definitely not the way she wanted, which he would wager was _not at all_ , but it was there. And just like that, Damar regretted his choice to push for a confrontation. He had been a fool. Again.  
  
“I’ll go,” he said. He wanted to assure her that he still had every intention of pushing for the reconciliation he knew meant so much to her, but he supposed that would seem like pandering, or, even worse, backhanded and passive-aggressive. Parting words occurred to him in succession as he briefly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, before finally making his move for the door, but none of them struck him as the right thing to say. Telling her that he would be there if she ever changed her mind seemed pathetic, and apologizing again—though he was stretching his own concept of truth by thinking of his first attempt as an apology—was just an unacceptable display of weakness. His pride had suffered numerous attacks recently, and he had endured them all with decent poise. There was no reason to make it worse now. Besides, anything he said would only repeat itself endlessly in the background of his mind until he was able, or forced, to dwell on something else. In the end he decided to say nothing at all. It seemed best.  
  
His route to the door would of course take him right past Kira. As much as it still bothered him to admit, he longed to touch her, to feel the warmth that lingered in his memories. When he felt a hand on his arm as he passed, it was the next best thing to a stay of execution.  
  
“Wait,” she said quietly.  
  
Struggling to physically contain the surge of hope that gripped him, Damar turned to her with what he wanted to believe was the appearance of nothing more than casual curiosity. A conscious awareness of his own body made it a difficult lie to believe.  
  
Kira inclined her head toward the door and said, “I’ll get someone to escort you back to your quarters.”  
  
He was utterly speechless. Was she deliberately attempting to needle him, even now? He had given in. He was retreating! What more could she possibly _want?_  
  
Just as his anger peaked, and he could feel himself succumbing to the adrenaline rush of a brand new argument, Damar caught the first hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She was trying to look away, with both eyes fixed firmly on the window. Her shoulders began to shake as she fought back her own laughter.  
  
A powerful emotion came over Damar then as he watched her chuckle into her own hand, and for a moment he truly couldn’t be certain if it was love or loathing. Perhaps it was both. “You’re insufferable,” he said through clenched teeth. Once she finally gave up the attempt to hide her amusement he gathered her up in an embrace, and he could feel her shoulders spasm between his arms.  
  
“And you’re an idiot,” she said as Damar dipped his head to kiss her. After a stretch of silence punctuated only by her occasional residual laughter she added, “Maybe this time we were both idiots.”  
  
“I can live with that,” he muttered against her cheek as he moved toward her ear. Her skin was unbearably soft; unnatural, and so yielding beneath his touch. He was ready to lose himself in it when he realized what was about to come next if he didn’t act fast: “Please, no more jokes about dying. For now.”  
  
Kira smiled and tilted her head to the side, granting him access to the full length of her neck and the enticing stretch of skin visible above the collar of her pink shirt, which he happily moved to explore. “It’s a mistake,” she said. “We both know that, right?”  
  
Damar agreed with a sound, but he continued nevertheless. “A mistake we only have to make once, to know for sure,” he added a moment later. He dipped his tongue into the hollow at the base of her throat and drew a line along the top of her collarbone, pleased to hear her inhale sharply. He took the accompanying shiver as encouragement and approval, and continued. While his mouth worked the surprisingly sensitive places he was discovering outside her shirt, his hands began to make their way under the hem below. She tensed when his fingers made contact with her stomach, and Damar paused long enough to make sure that it was anticipation, not another change of heart. It wasn’t until he felt her hands tighten on the front of his now-open jacket, and the nearly imperceptible tug pulling him closer that he finally began to move again. Kira had her back against the wall, which gave Damar the unique and exhilarating opportunity pin her there. He relished the feeling of keeping someone like Kira subdued even just for a moment; she was so willful, so eager to control everything within arm’s reach. The balancing act of giving her what she wanted and simultaneously denying her the full satisfaction of dictating its course thrilled him more than it probably should have, given what a dangerous endeavor it amounted to in the end. He knew she wouldn’t be truly happy until she had him on his knees.  
  
With a private smirk, Damar realized he could do that for her.  
  
Favoring the side of her neck with a quick, gentle nip, he sank to his knees, and immediately pressed his lips to the soft fabric that covered her abdomen. He heard a gasp from above. _Good,_ he thought. _I’m sure you weren’t expecting this._ Maybe a constant battle for the upper hand didn’t have to be so taxing, after all.  
  
“Damar…” Kira whispered breathlessly. She had grasped the hem of her night shirt, keeping it drawn tight between her hands as though she couldn’t decide whether to lift it higher or hold it down. When Damar moved lower he noted that she seemed to forget that she was holding it at all, and the pink fabric cascaded down to be caught in his hands as he pulled it out of the way and reached for her waistband. There was a moment of hurried tugging to untangle the silk drawstring, and then his tongue slipped between her legs, where Damar was finally able to taste the deeper heat that he had only managed to sample in passing before. The sounds Kira made above him could almost be mistaken for distressed gasps, but the way she tensed and writhed to his touch left no room for misunderstanding how she truly felt. With his face buried between her legs, the sweat of her thighs on his skin, Damar thought of his own words: _A mistake we only have to make once._ He was almost certain once would never be enough, but he intended to make the most of it regardless. His fingers sought the catch of his pants, and with a rush of relief he took himself in hand to ease some of the need that had been building since the moment he realized that Kira wasn’t going to turn him away again. His head swimming with thoughts of just what he might achieve with his single opportunity, Damar looked up to admire what little he could see from his low vantage point, and it was then that he caught sight of Kira’s dark, glassy eyes locked onto him from above. Her chest heaved and her mouth hung open slightly as she breathed slowly; it was altogether the most arousing sight he’d ever had the privilege to behold. The insistent but manageable undercurrent of desire that had been guiding him up to that point suddenly surged into a roaring need, reminding Damar with a deep aching that it had desires and designs of its own. Rising swiftly, he reached for the hem of Kira’s shirt and lifted it up over her shoulders. With the clinging fabric pulled free of her arms and tossed aside somewhere out of sight, finally, after weeks of anticipation, guilt, and regret, she was his. Damar stole another kiss as he wrapped his hands around her slender thighs. He could feel the half-second of hesitance before she yielded, and allowed him to lift her just enough to position himself. She was hot and slick against the head of his cock, and he pushed gently, experimentally, careful to take his time despite the base need pounding at the back of his skull.  
  
Kira wrapped her arms around his shoulders while he moved in her, and her slender fingers grasped wildly at his neck ridges; each thoughtless touch shook his control and made his knees weak, and he nearly growled at her to stop, until he caught a gentle laugh against the soft underside of his throat. She was doing it on purpose. Of _course_ she was.  
  
He drew back and paused. “I’d advise against that, unless you want this to be over very quickly.”  
  
She looked up and said with a wry grin, “What makes you think I don’t?”  
  
Damar’s answer was a hard thrust that knocked her against the wall, and forced her to tighten her grip on his shoulders. She returned with another “accidental” brush of her fingertips that sent a shiver rolling down the full length of his body. _Fine,_ he thought, _I’ll meet this challenge._ The single thrust became a quick, rough grind that left Kira scrambling to hold on tight. Damar grinned and pushed hard into her as she tightened around him like a vise, and her occasional moans turned into stuttered, whimpered sounds, punctuated each time he drove upward. The word _exquisite_ came to his mind, accompanied by the raw sensation that was systematically obliterating most of the doubts and concerns that had been lingering in his mind since his arrival on the station.  
  
Unfortunately it was Damar’s body that refused to forget. Still suffering the aftereffects of the poison, and under such a brutal strain, his strength gave out almost all at once. His arms began shaking first, barely offering him enough warning to stop and let Kira down so he didn’t drop her instead. “What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly.  
  
For a moment Damar could only shake his head and blink uselessly while the room whirled around him. The wall that had been so useful before was suddenly an invaluable source of support, and at that moment the only thing he could be sure wasn’t spinning. “You would know what was wrong if you had ever come to see me,” he quipped weakly. It was a poor attempt to lighten the mood, and he knew Kira could see right through it.  
  
“I read Doctor Bashir’s report,” she said.  
  
“Then you know what’s wrong!” he snapped, followed immediately by, “I’m sorry. It’s just—”  
  
“Lie down,” Kira instructed. She pointed to the couch in the center of the room. It was long enough for him to stretch out comfortably, although Damar found the idea of languishing there almost as unacceptable as a shameful walk back to his own quarters, escorted by the woman he had just failed to perform for. But once again his taxed muscles decided on their own for him, and he grudgingly stumbled over and dropped onto the couch. His partial state of undress notwithstanding, he felt a bit more at east getting off his feet.  
  
He was about to apologize for his failure when Kira, who had been standing beside him up to that moment, suddenly lowered herself onto his lap. “What—”  
  
“Relax. No one said you had to do all the work,” she said.  
  
That was his only warning before she leaned down and kissed him. It wasn’t as passionate as before, nor did it last as long, but it communicated her feelings well enough. Damar pulled his hands up from his sides and rested them on her slender hips while she followed the ridged line down the side of his neck, to his shoulder, making it unmistakably clear _exactly_ what she had in mind. He tried to sit up, but Kira held him down, which in his current state wasn’t at all difficult. She continued to tease mercilessly, gently caressing, licking, and even biting him where she knew he was most sensitive. Damar was powerless to stop himself from reacting to her touch; even if he’d been at his full strength, Kira was surprisingly good at what she was doing. When she closed her teeth on the spot just below his ear and swept her tongue along the line between scale and skin, he nearly forgot that he had barely been able to stand before, and tried to roll them both over with a singular goal in mind. Only the mental image of himself lying helplessly on top of Kira forestalled his impulse to take control. Besides, he reasoned, she had exactly what she wanted at the moment, and he couldn’t exactly complain. As he watched in awed anticipation, gripping her thighs with what little strength he could muster, Kira took hold of his renewed erection and slowly—with a level of patience that was almost agonizing—lowered herself down until she was sitting astride his hips, with Damar once again settled deep inside her. She took a moment to make herself comfortable, and then with a quick roll of her hips she started to move. Somehow it was _better_ than before—or maybe that was only his imagination. He couldn’t be sure of anything just then, with Kira straddling him, her palms on his chest and her head hanging down between her shoulders as she watched herself move up and down the length of his cock.  
  
“Is this better?” she asked at the end of a satisfied groan.  
  
Damar had no words left. He only nodded mutely. Clearly pleased by his silence, she straightened up and leaned back, changing the angle and making Damar buck his hips unconsciously at the sudden jolt of pleasure it caused. Kira’s wicked smile said she knew exactly what she had done, and that alone was maddening enough, even without the thrum of pleasure threading its way along every nerve in his body. While she rocked herself back and forth above him she plucked his hands from her thighs and drew them up to her breasts. Knowing it for less of an invitation and more of a demand, Damar decided that was all he could tolerate of being an idle spectator. Weakness be damned, he was determined to do _something_. He sat up and leaned on one elbow, wrapping an arm around her back to pull her forward until he could reach her breasts with his mouth. He could have had any part of her and been just as happy, but the way she gasped and groaned as he flicked his tongue over her peaked nipples made the physical effort worth what would undoubtedly be the high price later. As Kira continued to move, Damar made an effort to raise his hips in time to meet hers, and somehow, despite the complaints of his body, they managed to find a rhythm together. He mouthed his way across her chest, and Kira’s hands fluttered over his shoulders and across his back. It could have been nothing more than his imagination, but she seemed as fascinated by his scales as he was by her endless soft skin.  
  
Swept up as he was in his own enjoyment, Damar could still feel the moment Kira started to approach climax. Her whole body seemed to tighten around him, and as the first wave overtook her she grunted softly, catching and holding her breath in time with each tight contraction of muscle that in turn sent Damar over the edge. Just as she started to relax, Damar came; a strangled sound caught in his throat and his own body stilled entirely as he stuttered his release in short bursts that seemed to go on forever from his perspective.

When it was finally over he finally gave in to his aching body and collapsed back against the couch. Kira remained seated on his hips long enough to catch her breath, and then she unseated herself, stretched out along the length of him with her head on his chest, and sighed deeply. She sounded unusually content.  
  
Some time passed in total silence as Damar stroked her hair, repeatedly sliding one finger around the curve of her ear as if tucking an errant strand back into place. The room was beginning to feel uncomfortably cool, but he said nothing that might risk spoiling the moment.  
  
That, apparently, was Kira’s job. “So, does this mean you’ll stop complaining that I didn’t come to see you in the hospital?” she asked.  
  
“That depends,” he said. He hooked his free arm under the back of his head. “Are you still angry that I didn't include you in my plans?”  
  
She shrugged. “Fair enough.”  
  
Damar laughed to himself and closed his eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes.”  
  
”We should move to the bedroom if you’re going to sleep here,” she said, yawning.  
  
“I’m surprised you aren’t summoning an escort to take me back to my quarters,” he muttered sleepily. “Have I earned a furlough from my confinement?”  
  
“You would be warmer there, at least. And you’ll need a change of clothes before the Cardassian delegation arrives tomorrow morning. I think it would be inappropriate if I asked someone to bring them here for you.”  
  
Damar opened his eyes and looked down at the top of Kira’s head suspiciously. “You set the temperature in my quarters.” And probably made sure he had a change of clothes, as well. He wondered if that meant she really had hand picked his security detail. Not that it mattered, in the end. But in the current context of their association with one another, and taking into account their recent history, it was nice to imagine that she had still set aside the time to be considerate, even while she was angry. He was about to remark on it when it suddenly occurred to him what _else_ she had said. “What do you mean, _tomorrow morning?_ ”  
  
Kira gasped and shot up from his chest. She looked more panicked than he had ever seen her before. It was almost comical, in a way, as he had witnessed her coolly stare down death on numerous occasions. “I forgot,” she whispered sheepishly.  
  
“ _Forgot?_ ”  
  
“Well...”  
  
“You intentionally withheld information just to spite me.”  
  
The look on her face couldn’t be called apologetic or particularly regretful, but it was close enough that Damar found it impossible to be angry. How could he be, after everything that had happened? “I think it’s only fair we declare a truce up to this point,” he said. It seemed like a rather diplomatic suggestion.  
  
“Up to this point,” Kira agreed. After a pause she added, “On some things.”  
  
Damar nodded. “And I’m sure you’ll let me know what those are as they come up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my fic, and I hope you enjoyed the final chapter! If you were left wondering about anything (who poisoned Damar, for example, might be considered a pretty major loose end), don't worry. It will almost certainly be resolved in one of the followup fics. Although you may have to stick around for a while before we get there, because I have some big plans.


End file.
